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TOWARDS an UNDERSTANDING of TRACTARIAN HYMNODY: a Critical Appraisal of the Interaction Between Theology, Poetry and Music in Anglican Hymnody Between 1840 and 1900

TOWARDS an UNDERSTANDING of TRACTARIAN HYMNODY: a Critical Appraisal of the Interaction Between Theology, Poetry and Music in Anglican Hymnody Between 1840 and 1900

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TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF TRACTARIAN HYMNODY: A Critical Appraisal of the Interaction between Theology, Poetry and Music in Anglican Hymnody between 1840 and 1900.

HARPER, JOSEPH,FRANK

How to cite: HARPER, JOSEPH,FRANK (2010) TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF TRACTARIAN HYMNODY: A Critical Appraisal of the Interaction between Theology, Poetry and Music in Anglican Hymnody between 1840 and 1900., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/295/

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2

TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING

OF

TRACTARIAN HYMNODY

A Critical Appraisal of the Interaction between Theology, Poetry and Music in Anglican Hymnody between 1840 and 1900.

JOSEPH HARPER

Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Durham University

2010

i ABSTRACT

In October 1900 Henry Hadow delivered a damning appraisal of Stainer’s Tunes, and in so doing, castigated an earlier generation of Victorian poets and composers who had been inspired by the Tractarian revival. Hadow’s aesthetic judgment was formed by a new generation intent on the promulgation of ‘good taste’ which regarded the hymn repertoire of earlier Victorians as insincere, cloying and sentimental, with little regard for craftsmanship, artifice or spiritual expression. The objective of this thesis is to examine in detail the genre of the ‘Tractarian hymn’ in terms of its theological origins and content and its musical manifestations. The first half is essentially a discussion of Tractarianism as a revival movement (and precursor to the Movement) and how it found its roots in the political reaction to state interference in ecclesiastical affairs (the ‘Erastian Sacrilege’). The , which were widely disseminated, are used as a basis for a more thorough investigation of ’s revival in the 1830s and renewal of commitment to liturgical order, the authority of the church (through the agency of the ) and personal holiness of life, as well as to the appropriateness of music to divine service. Tractarianism rapidly spawned an artistic creativity which, through its natural affinity with Romanticism, excited a major movement in religious poetry, much in evidence in Keble’s compendium The Christian Year but also in a generation of Tractarian poets such as Caswall, Faber, Lyte, Elliott, Chandler, Thring, Neale, Ellerton, Chatterton Dix, Plumptre and Baker, and in the benchmark publication of Ancient & Modern in 1861. The second half of the thesis is devoted exclusively to a detailed musical analysis of hymns from this period in order to assess the appropriateness of the musical response to the poetry. Initially a discussion is devoted to the evolution of the hymn from its origins in metrical psalmody (in Redhead, Gauntlett, Elvey and Ouseley), to increasingly more sophisticated organic examples by , E. J. Hopkins, A. H. Brown and Oakeley where the influence of song and the expressive capacity of chromaticism are in evidence. Moreover, in conjunction with this artistic development, the concurrent evolution of the , organ and the imperative of harmony are discussed as a major factor in the expansion of the genre. Central, however, to the model of the Tractarian hymn was John Bacchus Dykes. His settings of Tractarian poetry brought the hymn more readily within the confines of Romantic art music with their reference not only to broader mainland European influences (especially in terms of harmony) but to other genres as partsong, oratorio chorus, lieder and . Using the model of Dykes, a later generation of ‘professional’ composers – Barnby, Stainer and Sullivan – were ready to continue the transformation of the Tractarian hymn still further, with more marked reference to secular influences. In Stainer’s case, the hymn became more of a cerebral vehicle in which musical artifice and contrivance played a major role. In this regard, Stainer’s promotion of the genre confirmed it as a serious form of composition, worthy of Ruskinian artistic ethics of the time. In summary, the hymns of Dykes, Stainer, Barnby and Sullivan, with their earnest attention to harmony, form and genre, serve both to accentuate the sophistication of Tractarian hymnody and refute Hadow’s accusation of superficiality.

ii CONTENTS

Abstract ii

Contents iii

Introduction iv

Acknowledgements xii

Abbreviations xiii

PART I Towards the formation of a Tractarian ‘Blueprint’ through the agencies of Theology, and Poetry

Chapter One Tractarianism as Concept: The Tracts for the Times 1

Chapter Two Cranmer’s The Book of Common Prayer and Keble’s 70 The Christian Year

Chapter Three The Clarion Voice of Tractarian Poets, their 102 interpretation, insights and inspiration on some contemporary issues.

PART II The Tractarian ‘Blueprint’ and the Evolution of the Anglican Hymn-tune as an Art Form

Chapter Four The Tractarian Hymn and its Musical Pioneers 152

Chapter Five The Revd John Bacchus Dykes (1823-76): Tractarian 219 Hymnodist par excellence

Chapter Six Barnby, Stainer and Sullivan: Tractarian Hymnody 281 and High Victorianism

Epilogue 325

Bibliography 330

iii INTRODUCTION

In an unremittingly brutal review of Stainer’s Hymn Tunes in The Guardian of

31 October 1900, Henry Hadow, one of Stainer’s own academic colleagues in the Music School at Oxford University, launched an attack on the very aesthetic of hymn tunes written by past generations of Victorian composers.1

‘They seek the honeyed and the perfumed phrase,’ he claimed, and damned the repertoire with the following: ‘they can touch the surface of emotion, but can never sound its depths.’2 As Ian Bradley has pointed in his monograph Abide with me, Hadow was of a later generation that admired the manifesto of Robert Bridges’ Yattendon , recently published between

1895 and 1899.3 Bridges abhorred the sentiment and vulgarity of the popular

Victorian hymn; composers and poets had suspended their critical acumens and what was wanted was a new beginning, where ‘good taste’ emerged as the principal criterion of aesthetic judgment. Indeed Bridges’ dismissal of hymns spawned by the Tractarian revival was symptomatic of a new wave of hymn composition which was symbolised not only by the Yattendon Hymnal but by both the committee of the 1904 edition of

(HA&M) and (EH)of 1906. Both these hymn books implicitly espoused the notion of ‘good taste’, one effectively articulated by new critical aspirations for both the ‘literature’ of the poetry and the quality of

1 Hadow, H., Review of Stainer’s Hymn Tunes, The Guardian, 31 October 1900, 1831. 2 Ibid. 3 Bradley, I., Abide with me (SCM Press Ltd: London, 1997), 203.

iv the music. In terms of the music, which will be the focus of the second part of this thesis, Hadow concurred with his immediate contemporaries, Parry,

Stanford, Parratt, Harwood and others, that the musical language should express something of a new manliness and healthiness, attributes that eschewed the so-called cloying and stultifying chromaticism of earlier

Victorian generations. Instead, a new diatonic style of hymn, often sung in unison, was born in which tunes such as Stanford’s ENGELBERG and

Vaughan Williams SINE NOMINE were typical examples of the new taste.

Furthermore, the new age brought with it an antiquarian zeal for chorales, tunes, psalm tunes from early German, Swiss and French sources (a factor particularly evident in George Ratcliffe Woodward’s Hymns of Syon of

1904), and, in the case of the English Hymnal, a multiplicity of folk tunes. As

Stanford articulated in his autobiographical Pages from an Unwritten Diary of

1914, the old hymn was a heritage to be cursed in the name of ‘fitness and decency’:

Our hymn-books are about four times too large. Our population is smaller than that of Germany, but Germany finds a of our number of tunes quite sufficient for her purpose. Her Chorales were the feeding-bottle of Sebastian Bach; and upon the foundation of their influence his music was built. Imagine the style which an English Church composer would develop whose early taste was formed by familiarity with *Dykes’s+ ‚O Paradise!‛ and such-like tunes! If ever a censor was wanted, it is here; an authority who would not only wipe out the rubbish, but insist on the proper speed. Fine modern tunes like S. S. Wesley’s ‚The Church’s one Foundation‛ are rattled through at a pace which would make its composer turn in his grave. The older melodies, written by men who had a sense of fitness and decency to

v back their musicianship, are played and sung as if the whole congregation had to catch a train.4

The trend of damnation, as Nicholas Temperley has described, continued well into the twentieth century with Vaughan Williams, Ernest

Walker, Erik Routley and Kenneth Long.5 Yet, as we know, while EH eventually enjoyed some success, the 1904 edition of HA&M was a considerable failure, requiring Sydney Nicholson to prepare a new edition in

1916 which looked to the 1889 supplement as the core of its text. Church of

England congregations and clergy did not respond with the same critical imperative desired by the editors;6 they wanted their Victorian hymnody restored, which they knew, loved and which articulated their emotional response to religion both textually and musically.

Perhaps most central to this discourse was the fact that tastes in hymnody change from generation to generation. Moreover, in the case of

HA&M 1904, the committee’s aesthetic judgment in terms of music was largely defined by the momentum of the ‘English Musical Renaissance’ led by

Parry and Stanford whose very styles, imbued with a quintessential

4 Stanford, C. V., Pages from an Unwritten Diary (Arnold: London, 1914), 311. It is particularly significant that Stanford chose S. S. Wesley as an example of an ‘approved’ tune, for an examination of the European Psalmist, Wesley’s own edited hymn book, reveals a propensity to avoid the modernisms of Victorian hymnody in favour of earlier eighteenth-century models such as the chorale. Even HEREFORD, Wesley’s best-loved tune is largely eighteenth- century in character in spite of its modern treatment of diatonic dissonance (see Chapter Four). 5 Temperley, N., The Music of the English (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1979), 303. 6 See Bradley, 202.

vi diatonicism, aimed to establish something national where compositional ethics (instilled essentially by Ruskinian thinking) played a vital part in the creative process. In the case of the generations of composers and poets who emerged from the Tractarian revival of the 1830s, they too were driven by a new ideology where music and poetry would seek to express something of the new principles of the movement. Quite contrary to Hadow’s damning statement, the creative juices of poets and composers were driven by a need to explore the contemporary world and its political exigencies. Moreover, they were also more than aware of the Romantic movement of poetry as espoused by Coleridge, Wordsworth and Tennyson, and by continental composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Weber, Mendelssohn, Chopin and even early

Wagner.

This thesis attempts not only to explore the repertoire of the ‘Tractarian hymn’, but to dissect it as a distinctive genre in which the poetical sentiments of the movement in turn initiated and inspired a repertoire of hymns and a generation of composers possessed with a new and creative musical language. The thesis commences with an exploration of Tractarianism, a movement born out of a reaction to state interference in ecclesiastical matters

(dubbed by its advocates as ‘Erastian Sacrilege and National Apostacy’ on the part of the Whig Government), an exposition of its fundamental principles and how, in turn, this transformed the profile of the established church. In this regard, an examination of the Tracts for the Times (disseminated widely to

vii the parishes of for consumption by its clergy and congregations) has been used to develop an argument of how the , through the initial offices of Newman, Keble, Pusey and Froude, helped to trigger major movements in poetics (as well as other movements such as architecture and religious orders) in which Tractarianism itself, with its emphases on historicism and the rediscovery of the apostles of the Early Church, the imperative of translation of early texts, the centrality of the , liturgical order, the of the calendrical year (which also involved the inclusion of the contemporary social panoramic scene such as war, famine, harvest and the mission to seamen), colour, ritualism and, above all, mystery, became a symptom of Romanticism. Chapter Two seeks to explore this discussion further, first in terms of the interpretative revival of the Book of

Common Prayer, a principal fundament of the Tractarian movement and, second, in the Romantic poetical manifestation of Keble’s The Christian Year.

Chapter Three leads on from Keble’s work in its exploration of Tractarian poetry and the generation of poets (such as Caswall, Faber, Lyte, Elliott,

Chandler, Thring, Neale, Ellerton, Chatterton Dix, Plumptre and Baker) who were central not only to the poetical repertoire but to those favoured by the composers, and the extraordinary explosion of hymn books that emerged from the middle of the nineteenth century, notably Hymns Ancient & Modern – as

viii Temperley has stated, ‘indisputably the representative book of Victorian hymnody.’7

The main objective of this thesis, however, is to provide an essentially musical exploration of Tractarian hymnody, in which fundamentally technical arguments of analysis are brought to bear on the repertoire. This, I believe, has never been offered before in extenso, and in so doing, I have attempted to present a range of reasons as to why I consider that the genre of Tractarians was one of enormous sophistication largely misunderstood by critics such as

Hadow. Through a process of detailed analytical scrutiny, I have sought to reveal in Chapter Four how the Tractarian hymn evolved from the old model of metrical psalmody to one that became hugely varied through the agencies of creative poetical metres and the structure-defining nature of innovative refrains, and by the choral revival in English churches where, through the expansion of church and organs, the hymn itself evolved into a musical experience of harmonic euphony and musical performance with aspirations towards ‘art music’.8

The analysis of hymns has also involved a detailed investigation of those elements of musical style – chromatic harmony, motivic integration, melodic contour, counterpoint and tonality – which its composers used with increasing vigour. So that, by the late 1850s, a clergyman-composer, John

7 Temperley, 301. 8 See Temperley, 306-9.

ix Bacchus Dykes (whom Temperley described as ‘the most important

Tractarian composer of hymn tunes’),9 would emerge to produce a model of the new hymn in all its hybrid manifestations. A study of Dykes’s hymns is presented in Chapter Five. Here the considerable range of Dykes’s productivity within the genre is explored; but in terms of detail, the evolution of Dykes’s art is also apparent in terms of his harmonic dexterity, his use of highly varied poetic metres and refrains, and, perhaps most of all, his desire to expand the generic bounds of the hymn to include chant, partsong, oratorio chorus and lieder – all of which serve to demonstrate Dykes’s thorough awareness of secular contemporary continental musical developments. With the last chapter, Dykes’s model of the Tractarian hymn is explored in the work of three ‘professional’ composers, Barnby, Stainer and Sullivan, who, in their different manners looked to develop the secular dimension of hymnody, bringing the hymn very much within the parameters of ‘art music’. More pointedly, which brings us back to the subject of Stainer, I have aspired to demonstrate how hymnody itself would become the subject of ‘cerebral’ composition, and, in refuting the invective of his critics, Hadow, Walker and

Routley, where, in promoting subtlety, artifice and ‘art for art’s sake’ as part of an organic striving for ‘unity’, Stainer would elevate the hymn to a new level of sophistication and artistic merit.

Revd Joseph Harper, Durham 2010

9 Temperley, 250.

x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the completion of this thesis I would like to thank the staff of the Pratt

Green Library at Durham University for their assistance with the facilities of this unique resource. The staff of the Main Library at Durham have also been immensely helpful, and I would also like to acknowledge the staff of Ustinov

College for their friendly encouragement and support. My thanks go to Karen

Nichol of the Music Department who assisted me with the presentation of this thesis and to Professor Jeremy Dibble who has acted as my supervisor throughout my period as a full-time student at Durham University. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Barbara, and members of my family for their unswerving interest and support.

Joseph Harper

Durham

March 2010.

xi ABBREVIATIONS

The following abbreviations have been used throughout the thesis:

HA&M Hymns Ancient & Modern

BCP The Book of Common Prayer

EH The English Hymnal

xii Chapter One

Tractarianism as a Concept: Tracts for the Times

1.1 Introduction

With the overwhelming amount of scholarly material available for research on this subject, which includes the three fundamental historical sources i.e. J.

H. Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua, (1864), H. P. Liddon’s Life of E. B. Pusey,

(1893-7) and R. W. Church’s The Oxford Movement: Twelve Years, 1893-45

(1891), besides six volumes of Tracts for the Times and three volumes of The

Parish Choir spanning the years 1846-1851, it does not take long to draw from this rich ‘literary reservoir’ sufficient material to begin to formulate some of the basic concepts of the Tractarian Movement regarded as the first phase of what was to become the Oxford Movement spanning roughly some twelve years from 1833-1845.

It was not long before the concepts formulated by visionaries from

Oxford, preached from the pulpit and through the printed word of the Tracts, found much support from both clerical and lay adherents alike and whilst there were antagonists, generally speaking, there was much to affect positively the religious life of the Church and nation both in the context of its theology, its liturgy as well as its music.

1 Certainly, as we shall see later, when examining the Tracts for the Times, theological and ecclesiological ideas (as well as spiritual truth) became a force to be reckoned with and even where hymnody was concerned, poets and musicians found that they were even able to articulate through the verses of

Tractarian hymns as well as through and liturgy, Christian theological and doctrinal truths that would fan the flame of revival and influence to some degree the spiritual wholeness and well being of the nation.

We shall later examine the substance of the Tracts and how doctrine and themes from them could be used in Tractarian hymns.

However, on a more cautionary note, Dale Adelmann offers a reminder whilst some enquirers the reading the Tracts for the Times may have awakened an almost instant desire to become committed to the Tractarian cause, attracted as they were to the aesthetic aspect of the Victorian Church revival because it seemed to be a logical adjunct to the principles of Tractarians, it is difficult to prove this. Many ecclesiologists came from traditional backgrounds. Others who came were High Churchmen who read the Oxford Tracts before they were attracted to Cambridge ecclesiology, yet considered themselves to be High Churchmen all their lives. Several leading ecclesiologists came from Evangelical backgrounds, and it could as reasonably be argued that this was at least as formative of their mature religious character as the fact that they had read some or even all of the Tracts. The term ‘Tractarian’ has been used far too indiscriminately to describe ecclesiological and ritualistic developments in worship throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century .1

1 Adelmann, D., The Contribution of Cambridge Ecclesiologistst to the Revival of Anglican Choral Worship 1839-62. (Ashgate: Aldershot, Hants.,1997),10-11.

2 Another point that merits attention with regard to the

Tractarian/Oxford Movement, and supported by the recent scholarship of P.

B. Nockles and J. W. Burgon, is the fact that there is evidence to suggest that the High Church Movement was not created by the leaders of the

Tractarian/Oxford Movement but rather emerged through what they describe as within the historical context of a long and continuous as well as rich and varied High Church tradition in the

Burgon also insists that the High Church feeling was not created by the

Oxford Movement but suggests that ‘the smouldering materials for the cheerful blaze which followed the efforts made in 1823, 1833, 1834, had been accumulating unobserved for many years: had been the residuum of - fires of a long succession of holy and earnest men.’3

Yet whatever the misconceptions or assumptions that relate to the beginnings of the Tractarian/Oxford Movement and High Church traditions, a reading of Church history seems to indicate that past ages had been decadent

2 Nockles, P. B.,The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High , 1760- 1867,(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge:1997), 10-11. 3 Ibid., 11.

3 when compared with early Christian antiquity. As Nockles has suggested,

‘the Tractarians also put a different gloss from that of the Evangelicals on the denigration of the previous century. For Evangelicals, the eighteenth century was to be faulted for not sufficiently ‘preaching the ’; for Tractarians, for losing sight of ‘ principle and practice’. 4

One does not doubt that in many parts of the Anglican Church the older ‘High Church’ tradition was indeed ‘alive to a certain degree’ and to use

Miller’s analogy, a real ‘flowering of the bulbs’ was taking place in the forty to fifty years prior to 1833, a revival which had its origins during the accession of George III and a reaction against the French Revolution.5 However, it was not until the Oxford leaders - and , together with other erudite scholars and visionaries, came on the scene and saw the time ripe for ‘reaction and revival’, that one senses a real ‘awakening of the

Church militant’. In addition to this sense of timing, one also discerns an awareness of the need for some definite authoritative proclamation coupled with practical pastoral ministry, and this, coupled with the gradual amelioration of standards in choral worship and the composition of Anglican . All these factors pointed to an ideal chemistry for the

4 Ibid., 5-6. 5 Nockles, P., ‘The Oxford Movement: historical background 1780-1833’ in Tradition Renewed, The Oxford Movement Conference Papers, Rowell, G., (ed.), (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1986), 25.

4 blossoming of new art in hymn, chant, and service music as well as poetry and literature.

1.2 Tractarian reaction to ‘Erastian Sacrilege’ and Apostacy

‘Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on.’

(John Henry Newman)

‘The Church of England has fallen low, and will probably be worse before it is better; but let the Whigs do their worst, they cannot sink us so deep as these people have allowed themselves to fall, while retaining all the superficial of a religious country.’

(Hurrell Froude, Remains, i. 293)

As is well known, the events which led up to the start of the years of the

Tractarian and Oxford Movements’ revival were prompted by the decision of the Whig Government literally to invade the rights of the established Church by threatening to alter her constitution and documents, and by the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829 suppressing ten Irish Bishoprics in

1833. In other words taking political liberties would affect the very foundation and doctrine of the Church as a Divine society whose very foundation was Christ.

The breakdown of relations between Church and State saw an immediate reaction from Church leaders such as Richard Hurrell Froude,

John Henry Newman, , William Palmer, Hugh James

Rose headed by John Keble, whose Assize at Oxford on 14 July 1833, brought matters to a head as he called the British Government to account for what was effectively National Apostacy. Reaction to the State’s interference

5 came not only from the pulpit but also from the dissemination of leaflets called ‘Tracts’ whether in single sheets or later in the form of theological treatises. Whilst the first publisher ‘Turrill’ hoped to put the ‘’ leaflets, which at first had been printed by private subscription and then distributed free of charge, into a magazine, publishers ‘Rivington’ took over and when the situation for them and their distribution seemed almost hopeless, an unexpected sale of the first volume was not only successful, but by January

1839, the Tracts for the Times became even more popular and the printers were not able to keep pace with the number being sold.

Material from the Tracts for the Times was indeed useful and important in order to clarify nation-wide theological and ecclesiastical ideas at a time when the Church of England needed to assert its authority on the subject of

Apostolic Succession, its position against , its position as the ,

(the Middle Way), as well as its thinking on sacramental issues such as

Baptism, Holy , sanctification and holiness.

Furthermore, as Dale Adelmann points out, it was important for the

Church of England to recover two fundamental principles at all costs, namely, the Church’s ‘apostolic descent as the real ground of its authority, and secondly, to the dependent principle that the sacraments, not preaching, as the covenanted sources of divine grace’.6 As will become apparent, the Tracts were written by inspired, independent and concerned individuals whom

6 Adelmann, D., 6.

6 Nockles rightly says were, ‘beholden to no committee of revision, and thus did not exemplify uniformity in doctrine, aspiring as they did to a particular catholic standard. It became as easy for a supporter of the Movement to cover his tracks by denying formal allegiance to the ‘Tractarian party’ as it was for an unscrupulous opponent to brand even traditional High Churchmen with the stigma of an equivocal nickname.’7

Before one examines in detail the substance of the Tracts, perhaps a brief comment is called for with regard to other ‘religious labels’ used by society as alternatives for the Tractarians: I refer to the ‘ Puseyites’, the ‘Tractites’, the

‘Tractators’, the ‘Newmanites’ or the ‘Neomaniacs’, terms which were not only labels after Tractarian leaders but names used to signal what this emerging revivalist movement stood for, not forgetting that later the term

‘Oxfordism’ did come to be used interchangeably with the term ‘Tractarian’.

Nevertheless, ‘Tractarian’ did appear to be the appropriate title, ideally suited and narrow enough in its formulation and character since, as Christopher

Benson states, it did refer to ‘the authors, editors and approvers of the ‚Tracts for the Times.‛’8

The Tracts, as scholars will testify, were issued in bound volumes as follows: Vol.1, Nos. 1-46 (1834); Vol. 2, Nos. 47-70 (1836), Vol. 3, Nos.71-77

(1836); Vol. 4, Nos.78-82 (1838); Vol. 5, Nos. 83-88 (1840); Vol. 6, Nos. 89-90

7 Nockles, P., 36. 8 Benson, C., Discourses upon Tradition and Episcopacy, (London, 1840),101.

7 (1841). D. Croly, An Index to the Tracts for the Times (1842).9 Bearing in mind the cautionary note questioning the total commitment of ‘adherents’ or ‘disciples’ of the Tractarian/Oxford Movements made by Dale Adelmann, there is no getting away from the fact that the early Tracts were being distributed by their authors and friends all over the country and were well received in vicarages. S. C. Carpenter makes the point that the Tracts found an echo everywhere including an enthusiastic welcome by Dr. Hook, the Vicar of

Leeds, as well as a schoolboy, Edward White Benson, who was found pouring over them in the public library.10

A further enthusiastic response in the wake of John Keble’s stirring

Assize Sermon at Oxford, together with the of John Newman, prompts John Shelton Reed, to state:

The publication of the Tracts and Newman’s sermons in St Mary’s won adherents to the cause, both enthusiastic and undergraduates and distinguished High Church divines, notably E. B. Pusey, Professor of Hebrew and fellow of Christ Church, who soon became identified as a leader of the movement, with Newman and Keble. Newman’s brilliance, Keble’s manifest holiness, Pusey’s scholarship – all were put to the test of the exalted vision of the English Church and its ministry, a vision with obvious appeal to young men destined for that ministry and more subtle but no less potent attractions for others. Within a year of Keble’s sermon, a declaration of ‚deep attachment to the apostolic doctrine and liturgy and polity of the Church of England‛ was drawn up, signed by seven thousand clergymen, and presented to the .’11

9 ‘Tractarianism’ in Cross, F. L. Livingstone, E. A., The Oxford Dictionary of The Christian Church, (, Oxford, 1997), 1634. 10 Carpenter, S.C., Church and People, 1789-1889, S. P. C. K., London,1933), 129. 11 Reed, J.S., Glorious Battle, The Cultural Politics of Victorian-Anglo-Catholicism, (Tufton Books: London, 1996), 8.

8 According to Walter Lock, a further declaration was drawn up by

Joshua Watson for the Archbishop of Canterbury, this time with signatures from some 250,000 heads of families. John Keble also led a protest deputation to Lambeth, asking that ‘poor people’ be allowed to sign or put their mark.12

With reference to these protesting groups, and aware that they were not content with addresses and certainly a little afraid of being affiliated to labelled associations and groups, Lock again comments: they were anxious for writing and anxious that each writer should be unchecked by any committee. The following basis of action was ultimately agreed upon: considering that the only way of salvation is by the partaking of the Body and Blood of our sacrificed Redeemer, that the means of this is the holy of His Supper, and the security for the due application of this is the Apostolic commission, and that there is peculiar danger of this being slighted and disavowed, ‚we pledge ourselves one to another, reserving our canonical obedience, to be on our watch for all opportunities of inculcating a due sense of this inestimable privilege; to provide and circulate books and tracts to familiarise the imaginations of men with the idea; to attempt to revive among Churchmen the practice of daily common prayer, and more frequent participation of the Lord’s Supper; to resist any attempt to alter the Liturgy on any insufficient authority, and to explain any points in discipline or worship which might be liable to be misunderstood‛. The form of this agreement was due to Keble, and the result was the publication of the Tracts.’13

In surveying the Tracts for the Times there are several features which seem to stand out: firstly, the fact that the Tracts hardly follow a definite or logical order or sequence since Tract number One, which deals with Thoughts on the Ministerial Commission, is followed by Tract number Two, the subject of which is The . Likewise, if Tract number Eight is devoted to The

12 Lock, W., John Keble, (Methuen: London, 1923), 82. 13 Ibid., 82-83.

9 Gospel, a Law of Liberty, it is followed by Tract number Nine whose subject is entitled, On shortening the Church Service. Tract number Sixteen is entitled,

Advent, whilst Tract number forty-nine is entitled, The Kingdom of Heaven.

Another feature is concerned with the different types of audience for whom they were written. George Herring observes that ‘the style of writing can change from one Tract to another, not only because the author is different but also because the audience for whom it is written might equally change from clerical to lay. One reason for this seeming confusion was of course the decision, largely Newman’s, to see the Tracts as the product of particular individuals rather than an editorial committee’.14

The Via Media – ‘The Middle Way’ – was an attempt to steer through many extreme doctrinal and denominational positions such as those related to the extremes of the Greek and other religious groups as well as claims of infallibility and authority here and the right use of Scripture and Reason there. Geoffrey Faber, clarifying the real purpose of the Via Media, quotes

Dean Church, who for the success of Newman’s theory ‘insists in any form or prescription for reconciliation ‘on the reality and importance of moral evidence as opposed to demonstrative proof’. The last claim is of deep importance. The Tractarians possessed all the moral earnestness and religious

14 Herring, G., What was the Oxford Movement? (Continuum: London, 2002), 25.

10 emotion of the Evangelicals; but combined them with an intellectual power of analysis and exposition, to a degree long unknown in England.’15

The Tracts for the Times do cover doctrinal material on the sacraments of

Baptism (Tracts 40, 67, 68 and 69) as well as the (Tracts 26, 27 and 28) but, as one is well aware, in English parish churches the sacrament of Holy

Communion was only held a few times a year or on special feast days in the

Anglican Calendar. Perhaps the lack of more written material on sacramental matters by the Tractarians is due to an earlier point made in this thesis that this revival movement was still in the process of exploring and discovering new as well as well tried theological, doctrinal and ecclesiastical truths. The

Movement already at its inception had to deal with matters affecting the

Church’s rights under God against the State when it tried to interfere and was found guilty of ‘Erastian Sacrilege’ over the Irish Bishopricks.

There is no doubt that the Tractarians saw the sacrament of Baptism as initiation into the Christian community derived no doubt from the New

Testament writings, the ‘baptism of households’ by the apostles. Baptism, through the use of water to cleanse and give life, is not only symbolic but also purposeful. The actual act of pouring or submerging in water is meant to signify, according to St. Paul, a dying and rising in Christ followed by adoption into the Church family and the kingdom of God. K. W. Noakes summarises the Christian position as regards Baptism when he maintains:

15 Faber, G., 324.

11 Throughout his letters, Paul assumes that to become a Christian one is baptised: the ‘once –for- all-ness ’ of baptism is a basic presupposition of Paul’s thought, as of all subsequent thought about baptism. Baptism is the frontier between two worlds, between two entirely different modes of life, or, rather, between death and life. Faith and baptism are inextricably linked; in their baptism believers confess Christ as Saviour. Rom.10.9 There are three important and directly related elements in this process of entry into the Church: repentance, baptism in water, and reception of the Spirit.16

Supporting these elements is the injunction from The Book of Common Prayer on the subject of Baptism, which reads: ‘We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy

Holy Spirit’. Being regenerate therefore, the child is promised ‘the blessing of eternal life’ and a share in Christ’s Kingdom. These words certainly indicate more than an ‘admission ticket’ into Christ’s Church.

According to Georgina Battiscombe the sacrament of Baptism was certainly one of the highlights of John Keble’s pastoral ministry at giving him much joy and fulfilment as he took each baby in his arms and said,

‘We receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock’. Battiscombe draws attention to the fact of John Keble’s

‚loving care and intense earnestness,‛ the ‚‛ which he always gave the child before handing it back to the god-parent, as well as the fact that when the actual baptism was over ‚he (Keble), seemed loath to part with the child and there was always a pause of a minute or two‛. Keble said to Mrs. Moberley in the early days of their acquaintance, ‚Those who christen little children have a right to love them.‛ His poems are full of reference to baptism and the newly- baptised. Believing in the supreme importance of baptism, Keble saw it as a Church which certainly had taken deep and

16 Noakes, K. W., ‘From New Testament Times until St Cyprian’ in Jones, C., Wainright, G., Yarnold,S. J., (eds.), The Study of Liturgy, S.P.C.K..,London,1979), 82, 84..

12 permanent root in the hearts of ordinary people. Parents of every shade of religion and of none bring their children to be christened as a matter of course and loud would be their outcry if a doctor or nurse should allow a baby to die un-baptised.17

It was difficult for the Tractarian leaders to hold together two different ways of thinking on the subject of Baptism; on the one hand representing the sacrament as symbolic act rather than a spiritual act, in which grace and faith come to the fore, but at the same time giving to this symbolic act membership of the Body and Family of Christ. Whilst it is true that the Evangelicals stressed the importance of personal and almost private conversion and intimacy of a soul with Jesus Christ apart from the Church, Tractarian leaders,

Keble, Pusey and Newman saw in infants just as important as the teaching of .

Tractarians saw the Church as important spiritual receptacle of spiritually regenerated children within the ‘’, the ‘Bride of

Christ’, inferring that Christ himself was synonymous with a figuration or metaphor of ‘the Church’, expressive language which would be taken a step by Keble in The , when he says that in fact the Church is Poetry further as not only the fulfilment of Old Testament revelation, expected as

Messiah through prophetic utterance, but according to Alf Hardelin, who in citing the theological thinking of John Keble, states:

17 Battiscombe, G., John Keble A Study in Limitations, (Constable: London, 1963), 292.

13 Christ is also the ‘type of the Church’. ‘He is’, says, Keble, ‘the end of the ancient types and the beginning of a new series. In Him all that has happened before was as it were, brought to a point; and all again that should come after, was but so many developments of what He said, did, and suffered among us. In this way Keble wants to express what was later to be called ‘the extension of the incarnation’ in the Church. For Christ is the ‘type’ of the Church in the sense that his mystery is effectually present, and actually realising itself, in the Church.

Quoting St. Augustine, the great teacher of totus Christus, Pusey says in his tract on Baptism:

The ancient Church believed that all [in the Holy Scriptures] was significant; that it was full of mysteries, ‚ something referring to Christ, some to the Church and thus the whole to Christ‛.This is the doctrine Pusey asserts fundamental to Scripture, ‘that we are ‚in Him‛; of course in some unearthly way, but still really and mystically. No mere external relation (as the members of the visible body), called by His Name) exhaust the inwardness of the words ‚in Christ‛.’ It is the question of the ‘hidden mystery of union with Christ and of the reality of our dwelling in Him, and He in us, which is not merely a ‚unity of will‛, or a mere conformity of mind‛’ All events recorded in Scripture bear upon Christ, who as Pusey says, is ‘the Sun and centre of the system’. But for him as for Keble, Christ is also communicating himself to the Church. For says Pusey: ‘the events of His history gleam with His own effulgence upon His body, the Church. In that He had deigned to become her Head, it could not but be, that He had instituted a mysterious relation between Himself and His body, so that she should, in a manner, and as a whole, reflect Him, and His acts concern her.

Hardelin concludes by saying that Tractarians were anxious to teach that Christ’s presence was in very truth at work in His Church, both through

Baptism, the way into becoming a member of Christ’s Church and the

Eucharist the means whereby He nourishes them. ‘The Church is in Christ

14 sharing the mysteries of his life, death and exaltation; in other words her essential and actual, and not merely moral, unity with Christ, the head.’18

Faber substantiates this point seeing the Church not only like safe harbour an oasis, a visible place on earth, but something more divinely accessible, when he says:

‘The Church was the divinely established . But she was something else and some thing greater. She was the continuing dwelling place of God’s Spirit upon earth and as such she had owing to her all the honour and glory within the power of men to pay. This exalted conception of the Church made demands upon the intellect of a much more subtle and difficult kind than the demands made by the current philosophy of salvation. And the process of establishing the claim of the Church of England to be regarded as the true Church involved an extremely ambitious programme of learning and argument. The Programme was undertaken by the leaders of the Movement. Palmer’s Origines Liturgicae, Pusey’s volume of tracts on Baptism and Newman’s Prophetical Office of the Church were among the forerunners of a theological literature, which certainly made use of reason. Yet somehow the impression grew up and has never been dissipated, that the Movement was mystical, aesthetic, impulsive, irrational’.19

A letter from E. B. Pusey on Baptism to Revd J. Parker, perhaps explains more clearly his understanding of the character of Baptism:

I think the best explanation of Baptism that of the , ‘Wherein I was made a member of Christ , a child of God , &c.,’ and so it places its value in our being thereby engrafted into Christ, made members of Him, and so being actually born sons of God, of water and the Spirit. The Low Church would explain how Regeneration is by making it a change of nature: better to have it as set forth; a new birth implies a new nature existence imparted; and this is actual, not metaphorical, and by virtue of the incarnation of our Lord Who took our nature that he might impart to us His. I cannot by any means admit that ‘conversion, if it follows at all, does not follow until the heart is conscious of its corruption.’ I do not think that if there were more Christian education there would be need of any such process as conversion; the child for the most

18 Ibid., 84. 19 Faber, G., 325.

15 part loves to hear of God and to obey Him, if not at the moment of strong temptation, yet, if encouraged, even then often; and very often children will deny themselves, punish themselves, restrain themselves, by the thought of God: help each other and be helped by them in doing their duty, by the thought of God. It is our faithless education which leaves us so many unfaithful Christians, and which checks the power which Baptism imparts. People corrupt their children instead of teaching them to amend.20

Pusey’s Tract On Baptism further summarises his position, for:

No change of heart, then (the writer says against the moderns) or of the affections, no repentance, however radical, no faith, no life, no love, come up to the idea of this ‘birth from above’ *through baptism+

If Tractarians understood the sacrament of Baptism as an effectual means of grace, the Eucharist was more so and the pilgrim, following initiation through Baptism, was meant then to feed spiritually and be nourished through the sacrament of Holy Communion which would eventually lead to his/her holiness of life. In trying to ascertain the meaning of how the ‘Bread and Wine’ at Holy Communion could become the ‘Body and

Blood of Christ’ the Tractarian/Oxford Movement was only grappling with issues which exercised the minds of theologians at the not to mention the early after our Lord’s Ascension.

Herring, to whom reference has already been made, says that in exploring these sacramental issues,

20 Letter from Pusey to Parker in Liddon, H. P., Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Vol 2, (1836-1846) (Longman’s, Green, and Co., London,1893), 33-4. 21 Pusey, E. B.,Tract 67 from Tracts for the Times, 47.

16 the Tractarians revived many of the oldest and bitterest debates within . But that revival did not take place over night; the Tractarians only slowly, over more than two decades, came to evolve what was to be their understanding of why the Eucharist should be at the heart of the life of the Church.22

Again, Herring, after explaining how the sacrament of Holy

Communion had been understood by Christian groups prior to the beginning of the Tractarian/Oxford Movement’s revival whether under the heading of

Receptionism, where the spiritual and moral worthiness of the person receiving the bread and wine were crucial, and no identity between Christ and the physical elements was accepted; Virtualism, which accepted a presence of

Christ in the Eucharist although not a physical one, but saw the Bread and

Wine as more than symbolic and once consecrated become the body and in spirit, power and effect; or which saw the

Bread and Wine as no more than memorials of Christ’s body and blood, no supernatural gifts being imparted by the sacrament, draws attention to the explanation developed from the theology of Tractarian , who, using the Latin terminological framework, the sacramentum, the sign or outward part, the res sacramenti, the thing signified or inward part, and the virtus sacramenti the blessing or effect of partaking of bread and wine, saw

Christ’s presence in the Eucharist as being supernatural, sacramental or not perceived by the senses, but at the same time real and not merely symbolic.

22 Herring, G., 38.

17 And above all, that presence is precisely located in the bread and wine after priestly , the ‘real objective presence’ not dependent on the worthiness of celebrant and receiver. Wilberforce also went further in asserting that the Eucharist was a sacrifice. Just as Christ the High eternally intercedes for mankind before the Father in heaven through the merits of his own earthly sacrifice on the cross, so the Eucharistic worship of the Church is the counterpart to this heavenly liturgy, a real participation in the eternal mediation of Christ, offering his body and blood, the one sacrifice for sins. Thus the Church through its visible, sacramental life becomes for

Wilberforce the extension of the Incarnation itself; the body of Christ is both what it is and what it offers. Here, then, was the very centre and meaning of the Christian life itself. For Tractarians, then, the Eucharist was the centre of

Christian life, and it was meant to feed the Christian heart and lead to holiness.’23

Naturally as was to be expected, subsequent debate and discussion came from many denominational fronts on the subject of the Eucharist, the meaning of its symbols, doctrine and efficacy, and according to Nockles with regard to Tracts 74 and 81 with its focus on the ‘Real Presence’ in the

Eucharistic elements, ‘included as many representatives from the receptionist school of Hooker and Waterland as from the virtualist school of Brett,

Johnson and Alexander Knox. Where Newman did provoke latent tensions in

23 Ibid., 38-40.

18 high Church attitudes was in his use of the word ‘altar’ rather than holy table.’24

Elisabeth Jay, I believe offers some interesting insights into the teaching of Tractarian E. B. Pusey, who on his return from Germany where he spent two years studying Biblical exegesis, and seeing that philosophy was not going to be the proper tool with which to challenge the rationalist thinking in England, chose rather to use the authority in Scripture and the tradition of the primitive Church. He preached a course of sermons related to the Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent. As expected, the sermon contained high sacramental language concerning Christ’s Presence at the Eucharist.

In preaching on the Holy Eucharist and emphasising Christ’s words as

He distributed the sacred elements to his disciples, reference is made to Old

Testament symbols, analogies, figures and types all of which to some degree or other, prefigure the coming of Christ. Reference to gifts such as ‘cleansing’,

‘strength’, ‘renewed life’, ‘growth’, ‘refreshment’, ‘gladness’, ‘likeness to the

Angels’, ‘immortality’, all these terms are all there and together with the use of Old Testament symbols such as the ‘Paschal Lamb’, the commemorative sacrifice enacted before the Israelites Exodus from Egypt; even the ‘Manna’, food for the Israelites in the wilderness following the crossing of the Red Sea; the use of the ‘Shewbread’, food only allowed to be eaten by and the

‘Cake’ given to Elijah; all these Old Testament sacramental ideas seem to

24 Nockles, 238.

19 prefigure what was to come with the Messiah of Jewish expectation.

References to ‘Wine and the Cup of blessing’ as well as the ‘Good Shepherd preparing a table for those who are led by still waters’ as being gifts for the believer are all visual images which eventually will find New Testament meaning in Jesus, the Bread of Life and True Vine.25

Hardelin also interpreting Pusey’s theological mind, sees worship and the sacraments, the spiritual mysteries of the Church as being related not only to past ‘history of salvation’, and the unfolding of the Eternal plan and purpose, but as well as being experienced in the present through the Church, he looks ahead and sees these mysteries as preparation and anticipation of heaven and the eschatological fulfilment (or doctrine of the last things), in the beatific vision which forms what he calls the organic part of Tractarian mystery - theology.’26

The ninety Tracts, comprised of sermons, pamphlets on theological and

Church matters, as we have seen, also contained liturgy and hymnody which were rediscovered from remote antiquity. Two Tracts, number Sixty -Three entitled, On the Antiquity of the Existing by R. H. Froude and number

Seventy Five entitled , On the Roman as embodying the Substance of the

25 Jay,E., ‘Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) the Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent, (Oxford, 1843)’, in Jay, E.,(ed.) The Evangelical and Oxford Movements, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1983), 188-192. 26 Hardelin, A., 91.

20 Devotional services of the Church Catholic by John Newman certainly provide us with an encounter with early Church liturgies and .

Whilst Froude offers us insights into the liturgical contributions of the

Monophysites of Antioch who used the Syriac Liturgy ascribed to the Apostle

St. James and in the Coptic language,27 he also refers both to a Liturgy used in a remote in Calabria by the oriental of St. Basil in the

Alexandrian Church and to Liturgies ‚from the northern shores of Russia to the extremities of Abyssinia and from the Adriatic and Baltic Seas to the farthest coast of Asia.‛28 One conclusion that seems to have emerged from these discoveries has been that the Liturgy of Antioch attributed to St. James does seem to have been the basis of all oriental liturgies and the truth of further investigation has been that really there has never been more than four independent forms of Liturgy; this suggests that these independent sources were of Apostolic origin.

As is well known the famous , was the last of the Tracts for the

Times. It was the Tract in which John Henry Newman interpreted the Thirty

Nine Articles and with its publication caused controversy resulting in

Newman resigning from his position at Oxford and his Incumbency of St

Mary’s.

On the subject of the Thirty Nine Articles, Chadwick says:

27 Froude, R. H., Tracts for the Times, Vol.2., No 63. 28 Ibid., 63.

21 The articles were the offspring of the Reformation and the Reformation was suspect. Examining the articles upon sacraments, future life, cult of saints, authority of the church, they found a discrepancy between their tone and the doctrines of the ancient Catholic Church. If the Church of England was Catholic (that is faithful to the early undivided Church), its prayer book and articles must be interpreted in the light of antiquity and must be capable of being so interpreted. No one doubted the prayer book. Robert Williams and several others doubted the articles. Newman courageously essayed to treat the of the articles in a Tract for the Times. Tract XC was published on 27th February 1841.29

John Newman later preached his celebrated sermon in Littlemore

Church on ‘The Parting of Friends’ and on 9th October 1845, was received into

The Church and issued his Essay on the Development of Christ

Doctrine in defence of his change of allegiance.30

Looking at the Tracts for the Times one gets the impression that they were all written ecclesiastical and doctrinal treatises, some lengthy, some short, offering challenging ideas and a reminder of what The Christian

Church should be as the embodiment of the early Church at work in the nineteenth century England. Gilley sees the term ‘The Oxford Movement’ as the inception of the modern Anglican High Church revival among clergymen- scholars in Britain’s oldest University, though it also has the wider connotation of its legacy to Anglican life and thought after 1845, for which more general terms are ‘Anglo Catholic’ or ‘Tractarian’ are used

29 Chadwick, O., The Victorian Church Part I.,(Adam and Charles Black, London, 1966),182. 30 Cross, F. L., & Livingstone, E. A., (eds.)., The Oxford Dictionary of The Christian Church, (Oxford University Press: Oxford), 1142. 31 Gilley, S., 505-6.

22 If Tractarian leaders could react so positively in crisis on behalf of the Church and people against the Whig’s Government’s threat, they instinctively saw the need for other timely ‘reactions’ as a revival movement and wasted no time in seeking direction to explore fully other subjects which will now be considered in turn. These subjects will touch on ‘Tractarianism and

Romanticism,’ ‘Tractarian poetics’, ‘The Tractarian building and rebuilding programme of Churches’ in the Gothic style, ‘Care for the poor’, ‘the revival of Religious Orders and Societies’ and the ‘revival of musical ideas and models from antiquity in the quest for the best and most suitable Anglican

Choral Music’. Such a survey of The Tracts for the Times subsequently aspires to open up the whole area of the music as a genre in order to help us to understand more fully Tractarian hymnody and its relation to ‘Romanticism’,

‘Poetry’ and the ‘Gothic Revival’.

1.3 Tractarianism and Romanticism

‘Romanticism in the eyes of the leaders of the Tractarian/Oxford Movement ‘placed content above form, the aesthetic above the moral, the concrete above the abstract. It views the universe not as a machine, but as a work of art and man a mirror of the Universe.’ (Alec Vidler)

One is not surprised at the quick reaction of the Tractarian Movement to the various intellectual moods and undercurrents of the period in the wake of the industrial revolution, and with the new commercial spirit of the day. S.

A. Skinner comments on this Tractarian reaction to such secular and

23 commercial concerns of the period when he states: ‘The romantic elements in

Tractarian thought found natural expression in their criticism of the commercial spirit; these elements were intellectual, aesthetic and historical.’32

Furthermore, he looks at the underlying causes and attributes them to what he calls ‘the genesis of the commercial spirit and the mal-distribution of property from which paternal mechanisms had never recovered from the

Reformation’.33 It has already become clear that as Tractarian history opens up, that leaders, clerical and lay, were profoundly in favour of restoring the authority of the Church, her high ideals and her ordered worship of the seventeenth century. The Church’s ideals, in the words of Alistair Mason were ‘overtones of religious revival, heart-religion as opposed to abstract reasoning. Historically Romanticism arose from ‘Christian and

Mysticism’ and held a cluster of quasi-religious convictions’.34 Alan Rodway, placing the Romantic period very approximately between 1750 and 1850, remarks that before and after that period many works show romantic tendencies, but they are not central , not loose to the vital issues of their age. They are literally eccentric. Indeed, the main romantic period can be reduced to the first fifty years of the nineteenth century

32 Skinner, S.A., Tractarians and the Condition of England’, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 2004)198. 33 Ibid., 204 34 Mason, A., ‘Romanticism’ in Hastings, A., and Pyper, A., (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, (Oxford University Press: Oxford 2000), 628.

24 was not so much because the romantics had no good sense as because Good Sense had been brought into disrepute by concurrent corruption.35

35 Rodway, A., The Romantic Conflict, (Chatto & Windus: London, 1963), 3-5.

25 If as is generally accepted, the Romantic Movement drew its inspiration from what German theologian Friedrich Daniel Ernst

Schleirmacher (1768-1834), defined as ‘a sense and taste for the infinite and the sensation of union with the infinite’, then what one may extrapolate from his discourses is the importance of ‘imagination’, the way a person feels about life in the natural world and his or her thoughts about the supernatural. By drawing attention to ‘heart religion as against abstract reasoning’,36

Tractarians therefore, by trying to glean through imagination and feeling a sense of the ritual and symbolism of the past, sought to restore some sense of the majesty and mystery that is, the wonder of God’s presence in worship as well as in everyday life of people in England. Tractarians were also attempting to correct the often subjective Evangelical stress on individual religious feeling and preaching alone. In their zeal for a particular brand of historicism and their desire to restore the former ‘mystery’ and liturgical order of the Book of Common Prayer , the Tractarians reflected a comparable

(although by no means identical) aesthetic tendency to continental movements such as the Cecilians whose desire was to connect with an older authority and order, and in this sense they were truly Romantic like their

Catholic and Lutheran counterparts.

Yet, as might be expected, their desire to counter the values of a secular, post-Darwinian, more materialistic age, also led them into direct

36 Mason, A., 628.

26 conflict with the progressive political and artistic ideals – that Romanticism happily espoused. A branch of the Tractarian movement, notably those on the explicitly Ecclesiological wing, were wary of the fact that the Romantic spirit could perjoratively affect the stance Christian believers took in the character and style of their musical contribution to the liturgy of the Church. Followers of the Ecclesiological movement (especially those of the Cambridge Camden

Society) were keen proponents of the revival of ‘pure’ church music, notably plainchant and the church music of the ‘golden age’, that of Palestrina,

Lassus, Victoria, Tallis, Byrd and the musical outpourings of the sixteenth century (a viewpoint also espoused keenly by the continental Cecilian

Movement and by English apologists such as Crotch and Ouseley). Yet such bald historicism was, in its own way, an expression of Romanticism in its desire to rediscover the past and the old masters. Tractarians were undoubtedly aware of the excesses of emotion, insanity, hallucination and fanaticism, vividly evident in secular music, notably contemporary opera and music of the concert, and works such as Berlioz’s opiate-infested Symphonie fantastique and Liszt’s Faust Symphony. Such excesses seemed entirely at odds with the Christian outlook, or at least that of the Tractarian credo. Yet,

Tractarianism in no way allied itself with the precepts of pure classicism since its spirit of balance and equilibrium, and its emphasis on formalism, ran counter to their desire to promote freedom of imagination and mystical reflection. Indeed the Tractarians reacted against this ideology just as the

27 Romantic spirit rejected what Claude Welsh calls ‘a mechanical perfection of a wholly ordered universe. It emphasised the storm and thrust of life, daring exploration, power rather than pattern, the impulse of content, even to play, in contrast to purity of form.37 Hence Tractarianism and Romanticism found themselves sharing common principles, at variance only in the degree of imagination expressed or articulated. Vidler has rightly enunciated that

Romanticism in the eyes of the leaders of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement,

‘placed content above form, the aesthetic above the moral, the concrete above the abstract. It views the universe not as a machine but as a work of art, and man as mirror of the universe’.38

Other significant defining comments have been articulated by Kenneth

Clark, however, who cautions us into thinking that the motives of The Oxford

Movement were only Romantic: ‘this was the great mistake of the movement’s enemies in Oxford: they supposed that the Tractarians stood for no more than a sentimental medievalism which had long been fashionable, and they quite overlooked the theological learning and moral earnestness which made the movement solid. Yet it had its strong, if unconscious, romantic side and it is this which links it with the Gothic revival.39 Owen

Chadwick, seeing the Tractarians as ‘restorers’, remarks:

37 Welsh, C., Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century, 1799-1870, (Yale University Press: 1972), 52. 38 Vidler, A., 24. 39 Clark, K.,The Gothic Revival, (Penguin Books,Ltd.,1962),137.

28 influenced by the Romantic revival, the Tractarians looked to medieval centuries, to guide them. They were rebuilding chancels, favouring pointed arches, advocating frescoes instead of whitewashed walls. Inevitably, and without any leap of transition, they looked to antiquarian precedent to teach them how to restore the dignity of worship. As sanctity undervalued was now swinging towards sanctity in haste, so dilapidated , dirty cloths and hangings and were now swinging to decorated altars, clean linen cloths and surplices and ornamental hangs.40

Nockles sees the ‘harnessing of the force of Romanticism by future Tractarian

John Keble in his Christian Year (1827), as spiritually liberating for High

Churchmanship'.41 The effect of what has been described by Keble as the

‘churching of Romanticism’, injected a poetic and restrained emotional quality into the spirituality of High Churchmanship, the result being that, imbued with Keble’s Romantic colouring and note of moral seriousness, it would have an appeal for the rising generations, especially those from

Evangelical households which it might otherwise have lacked. Keble therefore enabled them (the Evangelicals) to associate High Churchmanship no longer with mere ‘formalism’ but once more with that ‘heart religion’, ‘play of mind and elasticity of feeling’ which Newman later defined as vital elements of the

Tractarian ethos. On the point of ‘ceremonial and devotion’, inextricably bound up as it was with Romanticism, it is significant as Chadwick reminds us that the externals of religion take on new meaning ‘in the desire to turn churches into houses of prayer and devotion, where men would let their

40 Chadwick, O., The Spirit of the Oxford Movement, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1992), 46. 41 Nockles, 197.

29 hearts go outward and upward in worship, instead of preaching houses where minds would be argued into an assent to creed and moral duties’. 42

But perhaps most significant to the Tractarian spirit, in its desire to restore a sense of mystery, was to harness poetry and music as quintessential agencies of Romanticism as a means of expressing the infinite, the sublime and the timeless. For congregations it was a means of escaping from the mundane and for the Tractarians such a notion was ideally suited to the properties of church music. Poetry and music, in hymnody, psalmody and as a symbiotic chemistry, themselves to the expression of the indefinable, and their appeal to the senses and emotions acted as a foil to post-Enlightment sensibilities concerned with reason and science. Indeed, it was these very sentiments that Matthew Arnold articulated with such power and clarity in Literature and Dogma of 1873, where, he noted, the idea of God was as much a concept of poetry as it was of biblical exegesis and spiritual doctrine (a fact evident in Newman’s Dream of Gerontius, so popular among

Victorians in the mid nineteenth century). Poetry, with its power to console and to create imagery was enormously powerful, but, more than this, the ordered nature of its structure, its ‘higher’ sense of language, metaphor, analogy, allegory and simile, not to mention is heightened sense of ‘reserve’, allowed for focussed prayer, intercession and, particular to Anglicanism, reflective meditation. More to the point, the harnessing of a Romantic musical

42 Chadwick, O., 46.

30 language by the likes of Stainer, Barnby, Dykes and Sullivan (who, incidentally, rejected the Ecclesiological purity of ‘old’ music), with its extended harmonic vocabulary of diatonicism, chromaticism and dissonance, allowed the nuances of poetry to enjoy greater meaning and significance for the poet and the worshipper. It is this synthesis that forms the greater part of the discussion in Part Two of this thesis.

1.4 Tractarianism and the rebuilding and building programme of Gothic-styled Churches.

‘Christ is our Corner-Stone, on him alone we build’

[Angularis fundamentum – translation by J. Chandler]

Tractarians saw the ideal Church as a model, not only in architecture patterned on the Gothic style and in aesthetic theory idealised on the

‘sublime’ in doctrine, but also in liturgy, musical expression and devotion. It seemed natural as well as logical, therefore, for Tractarians in the nineteenth century somehow to become entangled with Romanticism and, as a result, assist a Gothic revival and the Ecclesiological imperatives of to boot. ‘Not surprisingly’, Mason comments, ‘Romantic church architects preferred the aspiration of Gothic Revival spires to the containment of classical domes. The buildings tell us at once: nineteenth-century

Christianity very largely adopted the Romantic tone of darkness and quiet

31 melancholy.’43 It fell to translator and hymn- writer and

Benjamin Webb, two Tractarian undergraduates, to look at Church architecture and also ritual practices and format.

There was certainly a need for Tractarians to engage in a programme of restoration and often the rebuilding of many churches. They were dowdy, dull, in a state of decay, bleak and certainly uninviting from neglect and indifference to and apathy to spiritual things during past years. If many of the altars were unused and chancels abandoned, the pews that were in reasonable condition in the nave were places for the rich aristocracy whilst the galleries were reserved for instrumentalists and the poor. Clark sums up the situation perfectly when he observes:

Cathedral and church services were being conducted in a most inefficient manner. It seems that choirs were ill- trained and very irreverent whilst precentors and those leading the worship in and Parish Church seemed to be incapable of doing so. Whilst choir books and , and surplices were very shabby and in need of washing and repairing, the attendance of choristers and lay singers was poor often irregular and instead of an orderly into church, the choir simply wandered into their respective pews or into the gallery in a most casual and haphazard way. Mention should also be made of the fact that items of furniture in churches had either been misused or abandoned and among those items were altars and chancels. Tractarians therefore, would need to replace stolen or broken altars and chancels so that with these symbols the ritual in regular worship could be revived and the imagination stirred to the glory of God. So if as Pugin had said: ‘to revive Gothic architecture you must revive old forms of worship, the Tractarians responded by saying, ‘to revive old forms of worship you must revive Gothic architecture.44

43 Mason, A., 628. 44 Clark, K., 139.

32 However, it was the Tractarians, who having caught the vision, not only revived the old ritual bringing meaningful liturgy into church worship, but restored church buildings with altars, chancels and later, organs all of which would again testify to the true meaning of a church and a Gothic one at that Vidler seeing the Tractarians as ‘saviours and rescuers’ of the hopeless situation in the churches sums up the position when he says: ‘it was as if the Tractarians were declaring that on the drab, dirty, and distempered walls within which English churchmen were accustomed to worship or to doze, there were pictures that when uncovered, would transform the whole building into something mysterious and sublime’.45 Indeed it seems that by 1871 some ninety- six churches and chapels were re-opened after restoration work on them whilst seventy eight new ones were built. The sight of the vertical lines of tall church pillars, spires, pointed arches, rib vaulting and the flying buttresses were of course the tell-tale signs of Gothic architecture. S. C. Carpenter, quoting from the

Calendar of the English Church of 1872, (Rivington), gives details of some of the rebuilding and restoration work from Murray’s Guide. ‘The church at

Pickering was ‚restored in 1861.‛ The church at Ampleforth ‚has Norman portions, but was almost entirely rebuilt in 1868‛. The church at Helmsley

‚was almost entirely rebuilt in 1869, at a cost of £15,000 the whole contributed by the Earl of Feversham.‛ The churches at Slingsby and

45 Vidler, 51.

33 Barton-le-Street have both been pulled down and rebuilt.‛ It has been estimated that nearly thirty million pounds was spent on the work of restoration during the century. It is evidence of an extraordinary zeal.’46

According to Clark, it was not long before a Society was formed with a manifesto which sought to ‘promote the study of Ecclesiastical Architecture and Antiquities and the restoration of mutilated Architectural remains’. A monthly magazine entitled The Ecclesiologist followed with an article in its first edition which, though it does not prescribe correct architectural instructions for a new church, offers in its title ‘A Few Words to Church – builders’ and reads:

‘Follow these instructions and you will get a building in which service can be decently and rubrically celebrated and of which every part proclaims the

House of God.’47 In the context of the Christian faith and the celebration of

‘Word’ and ‘ Sacrament’ it was so important to realise, as Clark again rightly affirms, that there was a connection between an architect’s religion and his work; and his whole conduct of life was no less important, not only ‘the deeply religious habits of the builders of old’, but also the ‘Hours, the cloister, the discipline, the obedience, resulted in their matchless works; while the worldliness, vanity, dissipation and patronage of our own architects issue in unvarying and hopeless failure’.48 Aware of the many influences of the nineteenth century, particularly Tractarian reaction against authority and

46 Carpenter, S. S., Church and People 1789-1889, (S. P. C. K., London, 1933), 387. 47 Clark, 139-40. 48 Ibid., 145.

34 Romantic turbulence, is there any wonder that church architects and builders desirous of rearranging their churches or building new ones wanted help and guidance and a feeling of correctness in what they were trying to do in the light of Tractarian ideas and thinking in the context of antiquity, and quoting from correspondence from the Oxford Architectural Society, Clark gives some idea of the dilemma that faced the Church committees of the period:

Is a spire essential? Can a stove be placed in the vestry? Is it better for the west window to have to have two lights, symbolising Christ’s dual nature, or three symbolising the ? Finally, how is it possible to raise funds? Perhaps the Society can help, with a small subscription, to re-establish religious architecture in this Christian land? And later we read how, with the Society’s help and advice, chancels have been cleared and pews removed, and even altars erected.49

Whilst researchers and scholars have found evidence of churches built in the Gothic style as a result of the Church Building Act of 1818 and with that evidence and the documentation of Clark, the influence of John Ruskin, A. W.

N. Pugin, and the Cambridge Camden Society, one cannot but admire

Tractarian Isaac Williams who, in volume three of his literary work, entitled

The Cathedral, The Baptistry and The Altar displays poetic admiration as well as inspiration for the Gothic Revival. However, it is in the literary work entitled

The Cathedral, that one is able to sense William’s poetic love of Church architecture, particularly as it relates to the structure, significance and the symbolism of each part, of a cathedral and presumably in every other cathedral in dioceses of the Anglican Church. For Williams, the division and

49 Ibid., 145.

35 subdivision of the architectural plan of the Cathedral into areas such as, for example, the nave, the altar, the font as well as the East and West windows, was his way of what G. B. Tennyson regards as: teaching the nineteenth century how to ‘read a cathedral much as he and Keble had tried to teach it how to read the book of nature. To make assurance doubly sure, he adds four pages of notes at the end explaining the structure and symbolism he has been elucidating throughout<

Naturally, the themes in his poetry on the Gothic style of the Cathedral besides being eloquent and powerful, articulate a sense of worship, adoration, mystery and awe.

Tennyson offers an extract from The Cathedral to give an example of the way in which Isaac Williams’ worshipful mind worked in seeing analogy and symbolism within the structure of a Gothic Cathedral:

Dear Church, our island’s sacred sojourner, A richer dress thy Southern sisters own, And some would deem too bright their flowing zone For sacred walls, I love thee, nor would stir Thy simple note, severe in character, By use made lovelier, for the lofty tone Of hymn, response, and touching antiphone, Lest we lose homelier truth. The chorister That sings the summer nights, so soft and strong, To music modulating his sweet throat, Labours with richness of his varied note, Yet lifts not unto Heaven a holier song,

50 Tennyson, G. B., 159.

36 Than our home bird that, on some leafless thorn, Hymns his plain chant each wintry eve and morn.51

1.4 The concept of Tractarian Poetics.

‘That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void; When God hath made the pile complete’.

[Alfred Lord Tennyson].

Although Tractarian poetry will be considered in more detail later particularly in connection with its ‘twin sister’ hymnody, it is important to look briefly at what Stephen Prickett regards as the meaning of poetry i.e. a

‘metrical verse composition spanning the whole of imaginative literature’.52

Prickett elaborates further, pointing to the eighteenth century, with the rise of the English novel, and saying that literature was polarised into ‘prose’ and poetry’. He comments:

The emergence in Britain, France and Germany of a new concept of ‘literature’ attributing aesthetic value to certain writings over and above their contents, coincided with parallel developments in theology. It is symptomatic of the continuing confusion over the term that while most modern theologians agree that biblical and theological language is ‘poetic’ their interpretation of the term range from the primitivist (saying in beautiful language what we all know to be untrue) with the sophisticated (an indissoluble union of deep thought and intense feeling).53

If Tractarians wished to restore some sense of the majesty, that is the greatness, dignity and sovereignty of the concept of the eternal Trinity, and

51 Ibid., 161. 52 Prickett, S., ‘Poetry’ in Hastings, A., Mason,. A., Pyper, H., (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, (Oxford University Press: Oxford:2000) 545. 53 Ibid., 545.

37 mystery – that is the enigma, the inexplicable nature and qualities of the same eternal God, in an effort to communicate to people in worship as well as in every day life – then one of the vehicles for articulating between people is through poetry, which unlike prose, employs the literary techniques of

‘creative imagination’, rhyme and to convey in imaginative language what it is required to say.

During the historical period for our consideration, Newman mentions several important literary personalities such as Scott, Coleridge, Robert

Southey and Wordsworth besides Alexander Knox and Thomas Sikes rector of Guilsborough who were also to stimulate the thinking of the Oxford

Movement, besides the Revival Movement’s own pioneers. If Charles

Dickens, William Thackery, Henry Fielding or Jane Austen were poets who through their contributions generally accepted the tenets of the Christian faith, poets such as Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Wordsworth and Coleridge became more aware that the Christian faith in its traditional form was certainly problematic. After all, besides the fact that there were more books to read and more time for writers to exercise their gifts and poetic talent, there was in Victorian England, more time for discussion and criticism, not only because of Darwin’s views on ‘evolution and natural selection’, but because of the open debates and political and literary views of the time. So whilst the

Victorian Age saw the ‘novel’ develop to a deeper maturity, ‘poetry’ became the vehicle for the inner moods, passions, expression and convictions of the

38 individual, emphasising feelings and literally saying that the relationship of man to his environment and to planet Earth as a whole, was not only through reason but also in relation to his inner heart and in the context of the

‘sensuous impulse’ to life’s vitality. An examination of Tractarian ‘poetic theory’ which naturally touches on the Tracts for The Times, which we shall examine in detail later under a separate heading, reveals that what seemed to affect most poets and was common to all was what Newman called ‘their feelings of awe, mystery, reverence and devotedness’54 Such emotional and aesthetic feelings were all part of the period of the Keble and Newman’s literary output which included essays and of course Keble’s Praelectioniones

Academicae which were the series of lectures he gave as Professor of Poetry at

Oxford during the years 1831-1841.

Tennyson sees all this poetic material as ‘constituting a self-consistent and coherent aesthetic theory that explains the kind of poetry that was begotten of the Tractarian sensibility’.55 There is no doubt that Victorian poets such as Scott (1771-1832) the Scottish novelist, whose translation of German ballads and poems such as The Lady of the Lake and Lord of the Isles, novels such as Ivanhoe or The Fair Maid of Perth; (1875-1912), the speculative character, who wrote poems such as The Ancient Mariner, Kubla

Khan and Christabel; Wordsworth (1770-1850), another Romantic poet, whose

54 Skinner, S. A., 201 55 Tennyson, G. B., 13.

39 sonnets and ballads betray an awareness of the poet’s search for meaning, purpose and noble ideas<..all these poets and others became aware that poetic verse could deal very positively not only with the ambiguities of life, including suffering, doubt, darkness and death, but also become the medium through which one might express Christian doctrine, faith, the holy life as well as contemporary issues whether they related to agriculture or politics.

Quite apart from his well-known poem entitled ‘Daffodils’, it is interesting how his reflections on the beauty of nature fitted into the Tractarian scheme of things. Bernard Reardon comments: ‘The Wordsworth faith in Nature with its assurance of a ‘central peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation’ could, it was found, sustain the spirit in an ‘iron time’, when science and industrialism seemed to be turning the dogmas of institutional religion into meaningless anachronism’.56 In other words, Wordsworth was seen as a fellow Tractarian, approaching nature in a religious way, viewing the universe in a ‘poetic way’ with no possible connections or parallels with

‘pantheism’.

It is in John Keble’s Lectures on Poetry, dedicated to Wordsworth, that we are able to learn so much about the linkage between God and nature, poetry and religion, poet and priest. One is not saying that poetry replaces religion but rather complements it. Whilst poetry may also be seen as

56 Reardon, M. G., Religious Thought in the Victorian Age, A Survey from Coleridge to Gore, (2nd ed.), (Longman’s Press, 1995), 266.

40 reaching out to things spiritual it is not a substitute for worship; rather it may be seen as preparation of oneself in mind and spirit and emotion too, for

Christian worship. An example of Wordsworth’s ‘search for meaning’, is perhaps contained in a selection from one of his poems from Poems of

Imagination, written a few miles above Tintern Abbey on 13 July 1798:

A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.57

Picking up an earlier thread on Romanticism, Tennyson, still on the subject of nature, comments: ‘Tractarians were willing recipients of a

Romantic heritage that concerned itself with the nature of artistic creativity, and hence the nature of the artist; that invested art with a special authority because it derived art from the divine; and that linked especially the idea of love of nature with the poetic, the imaginative, the aesthetic’.58

If John Keble saw all poetic pleasure as having its source in moral or religious feelings, it is in his review of Lockhart’s Life of Scott (originally published in the British Critic), in his Occasional Papers and Reviews (Oxford,

1877), where he deals with aesthetic questions on poetry, the nature of artistic

57 Wordsworth, W., The Poetical Works: (Ed)., Hutchinson, T.,(ed.),iv (Oxford University Press: Oxford: 1956), 264. 58 Tennyson, G. B., 22

41 creativity of poetry, the vocabulary of poetry and the way that poetry can be a safety-valve for the over burdened spirit, that he gives his view and definition of poetry.59 ‘Poetry is the indirect expression in words most appropriately in metrical words, of some over-powering emotion, or ruling taste, or feeling, the direct indulgence whereof is somehow repressed.’60 Certainly Keble understood poetry in broad terms so that common objects of daily life could have religious or spiritual associations:

Be it addressed to the eye, ear or mind only; be it a song of Handel, a painting of Reynolds, or a verse from Shakespeare; if it ‚transport our minds beyond the ignorant present,‛ if it fill us with the consciousness of immortality, or the pride of knowing right from wrong, it is of use to us, to all intents and purposes, poetry. Nor is anything uncommon in language to apply the term to these arts. We hear of the poetry of sculpture, the poetry of painting: and we have all been led to our present conjecture, partly by an attempt to find out what it was in each case whereby they were imagined to part of their’ sister’s nature. It would not be stretching too fine a point to say that really for the Tractarians, ‘the Church herself is poetry.61

There is also no doubt that ‘poetry’ for Keble, is ‘prayer’, therefore sacramental and linked to piety, but he also sees music as the ‘twin sister’ to poetry because it draws out the secrets of the soul through harmony and sequence. In his lectures on Poetry, he almost uses the idea of spiritual and poetical symbiosis when he states: ‘In short, Poetry lends Religion her wealth of symbols and similies: Religion restores these again to Poetry, clothed with so splendid a radiance that they appear to be no longer merely symbols, but

59 Keble, J., The British Critic, (1838), 1-80. 60 Ibid., 25. 61 Ibid.,25

42 partake (I might almost say), of the nature of sacraments’.62 As will be apparent later in this thesis, there were other Tractarian poets besides

Newman and Keble who were also translators and hymn writers such as

Frederick William Faber, Edward Caswall and John Mason Neale. To examine such a great number of poets and to see the way in which they affected the

Christian Church through hymnody, is to look at the whole communicative language of hymnody.

Watson stresses the relation of poetry to hymns by seeing hymns as

‘providing verse as against prose, sound as against silence, singing as opposed to reading, standing (in most churches) as opposed to sitting. They punctuate the lessons, prayers and sermon with opportunities to be active, to stand up, sing and express emotion and thought in words and music. They allow preachers to supplement what they have to say with hymns which contain relevant statements of doctrine, or ideas about belief: they also unite a congregation in making music and singing the same words simultaneously.

Liturgically they were important in the Reformation and after, because of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, for whom the singing of and hymns was an expression of a universal right to understand and interpret the gospel’.63

62 Ibid.,25. 63 Ibid.,8.

43 Bradley, in the to his book on hymnody entitled, ‘Abide with me’, explains both how Victorian novelists as well as musicians were fascinated by the medium of ‘hymn singing’. In fact Bradley echoes precisely what earlier Tractarian leaders revealed through poetic verse i.e. profound expressions of Christian doubt and ambiguity from the verses of Tennyson’s

In Memoriam and from Newman’s poetry which were among the Victorians’ favourite hymns. To a modern ear, Victorian hymns can seem rather anachronistic and archaic in their metaphors, their message and their harmonies. Yet they often have a great richness of imagery, a depth of meaning and mystery at their hearts. The best take their place beside the psalms and poems of Dante and Milton as amongst the world's greatest sacred verse. By and large, hymns are not written to entertain or boost the audience ratings. They have an altogether nobler and higher purpose, being intended to praise or petition God, convert sinners, sustain the righteous, guide the perplexed, comfort the downhearted, challenge the complacent, wrestle honestly with doubt, celebrate the wonders of creation, teach the basic doctrines of the faith and or penetrate the mystery of holiness’.64

64 Bradley, I., Abide with Me, The World of Victorian Hymns, (S.C.M.. Publications, 1997), xiv-xv.

44

1.5 Pastoral and Social Concern in Anglican Parishes.

‘From Thee, all skill and science flow, All pity, care, and love.’

[Charles Kingsley.]

There is no doubt that the Tractarians exercised much pastoral and social concern in the most of the parishes of England. After all, parishes were regarded as the hub of the communities whether in the emerging industrial towns or in the countryside. If the price of the Industrial Revolution for the masters of Industry was increased wealth, opportunity and enterprise, for the working classes life was hard and insecure Not only did both men and women have to work long hours doing extremely monotonous and boring tasks, often in unhealthy and cramped environment, but children were also put to work either down the mines or cleaning chimneys. It goes without saying that as a result of the striking contrasts between the living conditions of the employer and worker in the city, there would often be violent confrontation. If housing conditions were poor, often with only one room for all ages and sexes and sanitation which was much to be desired, is there any wonder that people found it difficult to come to terms with their lot and merely tried to survive. As we shall see later, the hymnody of this period does reflect the conditions prevailing at the time, indeed some hymns were actually a form of protest. Answering some critics who dared to imply that

Tractarians and the Oxford Movement showed little or no interest in the

45 social conditions of Industrial England, Skinner, in an essay on the social reform of the period, points to F. D. Maurice who readily praises Tractarians for establishing ‘the principle of a social faith’ as well as the generation of

Christian socialists who also register their debt and appreciation to the

Oxford Movement. Skinner remarks: ‘Late nineteenth-and early twentieth- century Christian socialism was rather a recognition of the superannuation of the Tractarian model – a religious clerical, localist paternalism – than a belated application of its theology’.65 He also quotes W. G. Peck who in extracting a social gospel from Tractarian theology, regards it as inconceivable that ‘within a religion of Incarnation, a revival emphasising the objective continuity of the community claiming to be the social consequences of the

Incarnation could have possessed no social reference, no implied criticism of the industrial and economic order of its period, no canons of a superior social structure’.66 Ruth Kenyon adds weight to the argument when she says:

‘It would have been a strange thing if men of the intellectual brilliance of Keble, Pusey, Newman and Hurrell Froude, living in an Oxford that was seething with the thought of Coleridge and Wordsworth, Wateley and Arnold, and in an England undergoing political throes which gave birth to the Reform Bill of 1832, the Poor Law Act of 1834, the Municipal Reform Act as of 1835, the Bristol Riots of 1831, the agricultural labourers’ revolt of the same year, and the industrial horrors disclosed in the campaign for the great Factory Act of 1833, should have noticed none of these things, or noticed them only to dislike the reforming zeal associated with political Liberalism. Capitalism was consolidating its position; Owenite Socialism was at its height; Chartism was in its beginnings. Tractarianism was no

65 Skinner,7. 66 Peck, W.G., The Social Implications of the Oxford Movement, (New York and London, 1933), 7- 8.

46 calm academic ex-cogitation of a theory of the Church from a city of dreaming spires. It was a reaction to the whole situation, and a reaction which, in the phrase of Newman no less than Froude, was to be ‘fierce’.’67

Whilst according to Skinner, John Henry Newman’s letters to his father, his sister Harriet (the future Mrs. Thomas Mozley) and Pusey in

1824, reveal the difficulty he found visiting the poor and ignorant people, making a point of visiting every house in a Parish of 2000 souls, i.e. St

Clements, and finding much pleasure and fulfilment in visiting the sick, he also exalts John Keble as the Tractarian pastoral paradigm. John Keble was apparently, intimate with, ‘the problems of poverty, the difficulties of domestic economy and the ravages of disease

1.6 The Revival of Anglican Religious Orders and Communities.

‘Take my life, and let it be consecrated Lord, to Thee’.

[Francis Ridley Havergal]

Of parallel importance and also concern was the Tractarian leaders’ urgency to revive and establish Anglican Religious Orders, ‘active’ or with ‘mixed’ communities, tying in its pastoral care for the poor in the slums of the great

67 Kenyon, R.,’Social Aspects of the Catholic Revival’ in Williams, N.P., and Harris, C., (eds.), Northern Catholicism: Centenary Studies in the Oxford and parallel Movements, (1933) 368. 68 Skinner, 144-146.

47 cities. Sandra M. Schneiders in her research gives valuable insights into the life of these religious communities when she explains: the religious communities public and permanent state of life was characterised by a full- time and exclusive commitment to living their Christian vocation with an intensity rooted in but beyond that demanded by ‘baptism’. It has sometimes been called ‘the life of perfection’ or the life of the – voluntary poverty, consecrated celibacy, and radical obedience in contrast to the ordinary line of the Commandments.’69

The first of the Religious Orders, according to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, to be recognised by Tractarians Pusey and Newman was ‘Soeurs de Charité’ in the Anglican Church, with Marian Rebecca

Hughes, who was to be the first Superior of the Convent dedicated to the

Holy and Undivided Trinity at Oxford. Hughes took her vows on Trinity

Sunday, 1841.70 The quick succession of communities saw one set up at

Park Village, Regent’s Park founded by Priscilla Lydia Sellon in 1848 at

Devonport, and now based at Ascot, whilst the Community of St Mary the

Virgin was founded in 1848, and Community of St. later founded with Harriet Monsell as its first Superior at Clewer in 1852. Of particular interest was the Deaconess Community of St. Andrew which was founded by Elizabeth Ferard in 1861.This was a unique enterprise in that this community combined its vocational and meditative calling with admission to the order of deaconesses. Only in 1907 with the first enclosed

69 Schneiders, S. M., ‘Religious Life’ in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, (eds.), Hastings, A., Mason, A., Pyper, H., (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2000), 611. 70 ‘Religious Orders in Anglicanism’ in Cross, F. L., and Livingstone, E.A., (eds.)., The Oxford Dictionary of The Christian Church, (Oxford University Press: Oxford 1997), 1380.

48 community called ‘the ‘Sisters of the Love of God’ at Fairacres, Oxford, was the ‘contemplative life’ revived. Of special Tractarian interest too was the community of St. Margaret in 1855 at East Grinstead founded by Neale.

The development of male communities, however, was much more gradual. Newman’s move, for example, to the pastoral community at

Littlemore in 1842, whilst still maintaining its regular vocation, did not require its members to take vows. Priests whose vocational work was devoted to work in the slums joined the men’s order at The Society of St

John the Evangelist at Cowley in 1865 founded by R. M. Benson whilst other men’s communities such as the Community of the Resurrection set up by in 1892, served the community around Mirfield, Yorkshire.

Mention must also be made of The Society of the Sacred Mission, a missionary brotherhood founded by H. H. Kelly in 1893. This is now situated at Willen Priory, near Milton Keynes. It is interesting that whilst

The Benedictine life for men was revived by , Father

Ignatius, in 1869, the Anglican Franciscan Order was established after the

First World War. The evidence thus far in relation to its Tractarian concepts pointed to an urgent need for the infusion of spiritual life and action and as has already been demonstrated that infusion touched the social state and fabric of the nation in its pastoral outreach and care for the poor, the need to restore Anglican religious societies and orders as well as the need to make church buildings and their architecture relevant to the worship of

49 Almighty God through an urgent rebuilding programme that in the context of Gothic revival reminding people in towns and in the countryside that in order to worship with any sense of awe and wonder each sacred church building ought to speak as loudly to the nation as Christian worshippers did in their regular singing and praise whether in choir or congregation each Sabbath day.

For the Tractarians there is no doubt that their real aim and intention was to look back into the past, indeed into antiquity in order to recover what they thought to be the true blue-print as well as living experience of the ancient Church of the Apostles. Indeed, John M. Barkley, in describing the

Tractarians’ search into the Church’s past says, ‘all their dedication, scholarship, their keenness for Gregorian chanting, monastic style of communities and liturgical reconstruction, was seen as a search, looking for

‘lineaments of the ancient Church, freed only from popery, corruption and superstition’.71

For Keble, a leader of the Tractarian Movement along with

Newman, it was perhaps even more than ‘looking back into antiquity’. For while John Keble thought it right to conserve and preserve the teaching of the

Church and hold on to the deposit of faith handed on to the present custodians of the Church, Chadwick discerned also that:

71 Barkley, J. M., (ed.)., Church Hymnary, (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1979) 32.

50 Keble had also begun to compare the teaching and practice, common or popular in the present Church of England, with the teaching or practice of antiquity, and found the present Church wanting. Therefore, the idea of primitive tradition was not only a preservative idea, but a quest for reform. It was a demand for the restoration of, or re-emphasis upon, those beliefs or practices approved or authorised by antiquity but wanting or fragmentary in the present age. ‘Is there not a hope’, asked Keble, ‘that by resolute self-denial and strict and calm fidelity to our vows, we may not only help to revive in some measure, in this or some other portion of the Christian world, more of the system and spirit of the apostolic age?72

1.7 A Return to ‘Antiquity’: The Parish Choir

‘Thy hand, O God, has guided Thy flock from age to age; The wondrous tale is written, full clear on every page’.

[E. H. Plumptre.]

The Parish Choir, perhaps the most seminal and influential Tractarian journal to be published during the heyday of the movement, though short-lived, covered many musical issues including examples of Gregorian tones and the improper mode of chanting them, responses and and also hymn and psalm tunes. Indeed, the very name of the journal implied that new weight had been placed on the office and intercessional potency of the parish (and indeed the cathedral) choir which it had not enjoyed for very many years.

Tractarian imperatives increasingly demanded (though the process was gradual) that choirs behave in a new, reverential manner, in their deportment, dress ( and ), in their position within the chancel, their attention to a new, stricter forms of choreography (which demanded formal

72 Chadwick, O., 29.

51 procession with prayers before and after divine service) and their participation within the sacraments, notably the Eucharist (the choir, even today, invariably follow the priest and servers in taking communion). And in the process and purpose of singing, choirs were expected to lead worship in a deliberate way which had not been considered vital. The example of John

Stainer as chorister in the late 1840s, when discipline was extremely lax at St

Paul’s Cathedral, can be compared with Stainer’s return to St Paul’s in 1872 when, with the triumvirate of Gregory, Liddon and Church, the ethos of

Tractarianism and the role of the choir was vastly different.

After all, said Robert Druitt, with regard to the singing of the ancient hymn melodies of antiquity, ‘they who would hope to join the saints above

73 Temperley, N., The Music of the English Parish Church, 2 Vols., CUP:, 1979), 258.

52 Volume Three and Appendix Three of The Parish Choir there was published a list of Hymns for Churchmen from to the end of the Christian Year.

As was to be expected, it was the editor’s hope that through the easy accessibility of The Parish Choir by many parish churches in the land, members of congregations would willingly come forward to assist clergy in helping to form local parish choirs, reform the standard of church music, and find in the musical material provided by each published edition, all that might be deemed necessary to encourage the music and worship of the local church. It was in the opening edition of The Parish Choir that the Society for Promoting

Church Music, the brain child of medical practitioner, Druitt, was first featured. The article reads as follows:

The Society, which this little publication now brings under the notice of members of the Church of England, has arisen from the feeling that something may be done, and ought to be done, to improve the style of music and singing in our churches

And their desire is not only that the singing in churches should be improved, but further, that all improvements should be guided by sound religious principles; and they feel that the latter point needs particular attention, now that instruction in singing is becoming so popular, and so easy to be had.’74

Druitt’s zeal for improvement was driven by his dislike of the old ‘West

Gallery’ style of worship where the organ, organist and choir were situated at the West end of the church, somewhat remote from the congregation. The style of music, often little known to the congregation, and ornate in its quasi-

74 Druitt, R., The Parish Choir, Volume I, (John Ollivier, Pall Mall, London, 1846-51), 1.

53 Handelian manner, did little, in Druitt’s view, to generate a sense of corporate singing. Druitt, who often went by the name of an anonymous singer (‘An

Old Singer’), was frequently moved to express his disenchantment at the behaviour of the choir, and the poor singing of hymns:

But, sir, if many acts of indiscretion are committed by the organist and his one or two friends, what shall we say of an assembly of men and boys or women, put in a gallery on high, and screened by curtains? I have been in many such a gallery; for wherever I have lived, being known to be musical, I have been invited to take a share in the performances. On assembling, (and it is not seldom that the singers come in quite late, after the service has begun,) there is the How d’ye do? What are we to have today? how did people say the new hymn went last Sunday evening? and similar gossip to be discussed. The books are to be found and sorted; Mr A must be told to mind such a point, where the tenor leads; Mr B cautioned not to sing too loud, &. Mr C has not got a part; so a leaf must be torn out of one of the music-books, and it must be copied with a pencil: so they sit and crouch together, holding a whispering chat till the time comes for the grand display. Then curtains are withdrawn; they come forward and sing their parts. The psalm over; the curtains are closed: and they sit down again and criticize the thing they have just done. Thus the time is beguiled till the next psalm; then follows the sermon, when one or two shirk out; others sit, all sleep, or talk, or peep between the curtains at the ladies in the congregation.

This sir, is not an overdrawn picture, I wish it was. It is not either an occasional occurrence, but it is the regular style, of conduct, in three out of four singing galleries. In fact, the occupants of these galleries do not, for the most part, come to praise God, or pray; they come to sing, either for the gratification of a musical taste, or for the gratification of vanity, or for pay: if deprived of either of these inducements, will sing no longer, but betake themselves to the Meeting House, or else stay at home.

I hope these few observations, will induce your clerical readers, to keep their eyes upon the singing galleries, and if possible to abolish them altogether. Why not let the singers if they do not choose to put them in the chancel, sit in one or two pews that are nearest the reading-desk? There they would be sufficiently secure from being stared at and would be able to lead the congregation in good earnest.

54 I must say though, that as for leading the congregation, it is the last thing your gallery singers dream of. They ridicule the idea; and render the thing as impossible as they can. I asked the organist of a West End church lately why he used such difficult tunes, and why he would not give such as the poor people could sing? He replied, that he was not going to spoil the effect of his quire for any such nonsense as that.

In fact Druitt was pessimistic about the future of parish church choirs without the ordered introduction and discipline of singers and a proper repertoire of devotional music. He concluded:

It seems to me, sir, that the progress of Church Music is at present at a standstill. And the reason I believe to be, want of the proper singers. Want of persons who will take up the thing in a devotional spirit, and who would evince and diffuse a devotional style of singing. This is perfectly impossible to be obtained except from devout churchmen. To have the odds and ends of fiddlers, music-masters, ballad-singers, hired to attend on a Sunday, is ridiculous.

I am. Sir, yours obediently, AN OLD SINGER London, December, 1848. 75

A quick survey of the type of material in Volume I of The Parish Choir comprised not only the ordinary services and general responses, the Venite,

Te Deum, , Jubilate, , Cantate Domino, ,

Deus Misereatur, with a small collections of Anthems, but also articles on

‘Lessons in Singing’, ‘Singing at Funerals in Country Parishes’, ‘Short notes on Chanting the Psalms’,76 as well as Defects in Cathedral Services’, drawing

75 ‘Crusade against Singing Galleries’, The Parish Choir Vol. 2, 139-140. 76 Ibid., Ibid.,March, 1846), 6 and 14 and (April, 1846), 19.

55 attention to ‘reverence’, ‘dress’ (surplices), ‘excessive noise’, and the way

‘Lessons are read.’77

The first volume of The Parish Choir, completed in September, 1847, comprised twenty-one numbers, and with each edition supplied musical settings of for the daily offices of the Anglican Church, as well as a few anthems which were composed by musicians such as Weldon, Tallis and

Monk. Definite progress seems to have been made in the formation and teaching of choirs and developing church music as a whole in

Cambridgeshire and in particular, St Peter’s, Newcastle, where the church had one of the few if not the only choir that was suitably robed for worship.

Many of the churches in Bristol were also engaged in reforming the music of their services and when the second volume of The Parish Choir was published, it contained some thirty formal accounts of vigorous progress in towns, counties and dioceses: special mention may be made of Birmingham,78

Brighton,79 Dorset,80 Dover,81 Oxford,82 Wakefield,83 and Manchester84. It does not therefore seem surprising, that the concluding paragraph of the Preface to the Second Volume of The Parish Choir should end on a positive and gratifying

77 Ibid., (July, 1846), 47-48. 78 The Parish Choir,Volume II, 83. 79 Ibid., 163,186. 80 Ibid., 94. 81 Ibid., 117. 82 Ibid., 46, 54, 55. 83 Ibid., 111. 84 Ibid., 23.

56 note with the news that the journal’s various editions had spread to different parts of the world, to many a bleak quarter of our own land, whilst making its way into some of the darkest and the most distant of our Colonies – carrying in every direction the divine injunction, and instructing in its due observance – ‚ O, sing unto God, with the voices of melody. O, sing praises, sing praise, unto our God: O, sing praises, sing praises unto our king. For God is the king of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding.‛

One must not forget, of course, the support given by The Parish Choir to the establishing and setting up of The Church of England’s Training College of St

Mark’s Chelsea in 1841, an important centre where not only John Hullah,

Thomas Helmore and his brother Frederick would be greatly involved, but where school teachers would be trained and where singing would be at the heart of the syllabus and curriculum. What was praiseworthy about The Parish

Choir journal was the fact that whilst some feedback reports related to progress in some parishes as newly formed choirs and congregations were being trained to sing, with vicars and schoolmasters also eager to learn and take an active part, other reports were more negative and needed challenge and inspiration as well as a reminder to work towards Tractarian spiritual ideals. Whilst there had been positive encouraging comments with regard to services in Salisbury Cathedral, some rather negative comments from a letter sent to the Guardian, 23 August 1849 criticised a Cathedral service at Lincoln, in which, it is alleged, ‘the choirboys could not sing and the organist could not play; a service which was both sluggish and described as a crawling,

57 wretched, lame insect from beginning to end, so that the correspondent had to confess that, through the service, he could not help but feel unfeigned astonishment at the exhibition which was going on, and made him ask himself repeatedly – What are these people doing? Is this a cathedral service, or is it something else?’84

It was good that The Parish Choir appealed to both Cathedral and

Parish churches alike, offering advice, guidance with pertinent articles on all aspects of musical life whether it related to the importance of ‘prayers for choristers before and after worship’, and the place and siting of the as opposed to the barrel organ in worship, especially since a new two- manual organ was installed at St Mark’s College, Chelsea in 1861. Yes, there were even prayers for the organist before Divine Service,85 and in the Preface to Volume Three, ‘the importance of the ‘sanctity of organists’ duties’.86 Of course the importance and place of the organ as it was being developed technically as an instrument was remarkable and the Parish Choir comments on the enlargement and modifications of the organ in Westminster Abbey first erected by Shrider and Jordan in 1730:

The organist may be said to sit surrounded on all sides by his instrument; the Great organ faces him; the Swell Organ is behind him, the Choir organ is on his right and the Pedal pipes lie extended on his left. Notwithstanding this arrangement no divided effect is perceived in the Church, nor is it at all

84 Ibid., 123. 85 The Parish Choir, Volume I., (ed.)., December, 1846), No.11. 86 The Parish Choir, Volume III, (March,1851), No.4.

58 perceptible that the notes of the Great Organ and Swell come from different sides of the church; the unity of the instrument is well preserved.87

In keeping with Tractarian thinking which drew upon two distinct models, i.e. the Ecclesiological and Cathedral models in its determination to revive Anglican choral music, there were many ‘Responses’ and ‘Anthems’ composed to meet all needs. Anthems such as Tye’s ‘Sing to the Lord’, Tallis’s

‘If ye love me’, Gibbons’s nobler anthem, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ and

Rogers’s ‘Teach me O Lord’ will always be remembered. The object of the

Ecclesiological model was to involve the congregation in the singing of the

Church service allowing the clergy to intone the prayers and versicles, whilst the congregation sang the responses. In keeping with the Oxford Movement’s desire for solemnity and an atmosphere of antiquity, both in town and country churches, chants from the Prayer Book psalms were sung to

Gregorian psalm tones thereby complementing the Gothic ‘feel’ of the architecture of the church. Unaccompanied services and anthems used 16th and 17th century repertoires with adaptations into English of Latin were the order of the day. Nicholas Temperley makes a useful comment on the importance of music at St. Mark’s College, Chelsea, 1841, an important centre, when he points out: here was an opportunity to spread a knowledge of church music into the towns and villages of the nation. John Hullah, whose sight-singing methods were just beginning to spread a knowledge of vocal music to the lower classes of London society, was appointed to provide the basic musical training to the

87 The Parish Choir, Volume III., 69-70.

59 students, who were not selected for their musical talent whilst Thomas Helmore, the Vice principal, was charged with teaching them to sing choral services. The men were joined by boys from the model school which was part of the foundation, and performed unaccompanied choral services daily – there was no organ in the college chapel until 1861.Their repertory included an ambitious range of sixteenth and seventeenth-century works, both English and Italian, by way of anthems and settings of the canticles. Tallis’s responses and litany were used, and the psalms were chanted to either Anglican or Gregorian chants. The ‘congregational’ parts of the service were sung by all, while the most proficient students sang the anthems and services.88

With regard to the second model, which related to the cathedral, it seems that in 1841, the city of Leeds, in West Yorkshire, had built the first Parish Church whose building and worship followed the cathedral tradition. Walter

Farquhar Hook (1798- 1871) was the incumbent and instituted daily choral services. The incumbent chose John Jebb (1805-1886) as his consultant on the details of Cathedral worship and in 1842, became musical director. Other appointments taking place at this time saw Edward

John Hopkins (1818-1901) appointed to the Temple Church in London which had been completely restored and under whose direction the musical standards of cathedral worship were maintained, whilst the appointment of

Thomas Attwood Walmisley (1814-1856) to the organist position of Trinity

College and St John’s College, Cambridge in 1833 resulted in new standards being pursued in choral worship. Likewise in 1848, with the opening of

Radley College Oxford, Edwin George Monk (1819-1900) was appointed. Full cathedral services were introduced on Sundays and weekdays again, with

88 Temperley, 257-9.

60 ecclesiological standards being maintained. One of the Tractarian hymn writers whose musical hymn contribution will be considered later was Sir

Frederick Ouseley (1825-1889). He founded the Church and College of St

Michael at Tenbury in 1856 and was also one who supported the daily choral service according to the cathedral tradition. If were to become the centre of Diocesan Church life then it was important to link them to the work being carried on in universities, theological colleges, local schools, diocesan charities, and so from time to time to stimulate the musical ideal by holding special choral festivals. Following the first Diocesan Choral at

Lichfield in 1865, choral festivals became popular and times when the high musical standards of choirs from parish churches throughout the country could be demonstrated as well as show a sense of Christian unity. It is W.

Gatens who offers a reminder that:

English Cathedral music was not essentially music rendered by large forces in the presence of large congregations, which was sometimes the case with elaborate church music in other countries Catholic or Protestant. The English daily choral service is typically an intimate affair, associated not with the cavernous naves of the great cathedrals but with their enclosed or semi- enclosed choirs, or college chapels, with a small choir and clergy seated in fairly close proximity in facing stalls. A congregation is welcome but not strictly essential, because the statutory duty of the collegiate body, the choir and chapter, is to render daily choral praise for the glory of God, not primarily for the edification of human listeners. It is a remarkable development of the Victorian period that cathedral music came to be regarded as the normal music of the Anglican Church as a whole, not just the preserve of the choral foundations. Elements of the cathedral ideal found their way into the typical parish churches of the land to produce that varying mixture of congregational and choral worship that had become the norm by

61 the end of the , and that may only now be showing the serious signs of deterioration’.89

There had always been opportunity to express opinions and differing views through the journal of The Parish Choir and naturally many were saddened, particularly Druitt himself, when Volume III saw the series come to an end in March 1851. Appendix Three to Volume III of The Parish Choir catalogues an interesting list, overtly in capitals of what is described as

‘Hymns for Churchmen from Advent to the end of The Christian Year’, with a guide to the Tunes in a list provided, marking those most appropriate to the words.90

Several features emerged such as firstly, the fact that, from this collection of 144 hymns, there were only 54 tunes in an appropriate column, but with obvious duplication; secondly, neither the author’s nor the composer’s name were given and some verses did not in fact accord with the prescribed tunes; thirdly, generally the tunes were rather bland and monotonous following the usual simple, conservative standards of the more

‘sublime’ musical style espoused by William Crotch, with only tonic to dominant variations within a restricted harmonic parameter. Finally, what was most revealing was the fact that several of the more well known and popular tunes were there in Hymns for Churchmen but not associated with words with which congregations are now most familiar. The familiar tune,

89 Gatens, W. J., 1986, 14-15. 90 The Parish Choir, Appendix, Volume III, 3.

62 BRISTOL, normally associated with the words for Advent ‘Hark the glad sound! The Saviour comes’, is here set to a hymn for the ‘Circumcision of

Christ’. Likewise, the tune, ST. ANNE, which is usually sung to the words ‘O

God our help in ages past’ is set to words for the season, ‘High let us swell our tuneful notes’. MELCOMBE, which is normally associated with

‘New every morning is the love’, is here set to ‘Jesu, Creator of the world’, for

Sexagesima Sunday. Finally, the tune ROCKINGHAM, normally associated with the words ‘When I survey the wondrous Cross’, is here wedded to the words, ‘Where high the heavenly temple stands’ used for the Sunday after

Ascension Day. There are of course, many other seemingly, ‘word–tune’ mismatches.

The Parish Choir set down four basic principles which focused on the fact that, first and foremost, congregational singing should be in unison so that the ordinary musically-untrained church-goer might be able to participate more fully in worship. Secondly, it was important that, ‘the melody should be clearly marked (in contradistinction to the West Gallery tradition where the melody was generally in the tenor line and often could not be heard) and that its compass should be within the natural limits of the human voice. The Society for Promoting Church Music was determined that there should be no more straining for high notes and no more growling basses among those lifting their voices in praise of God. Its overall aim, for more seemly and reverential music in church, is evidenced in the fourth and final

63 principle laid down in the journal, that metrical psalmody should henceforth be confined to tunes in common time, rather than the triple time often employed in the West Gallery tunes.’91

It was not long before many following Hymns for Churchmen, appeared such as Havergal’s Old Church Psalmody, (1847), Neale and

Helmore’s Hymnal Noted, (1852), Catherine Winkworth’s Lyra Germanica,

(1855) and Hymns Ancient and Modern under its elected Musical editor W. H.

Monk and chairman Sir H. W. Baker. Whilst Evangelicals viewed hymn- singing as an important vehicle of Christian expression, Tractarians were suspicious of hymns that seemed to be too emotional. In the words of T.

Whittle, ‘They mistrusted the emotional tug in so many ‘Low and Broad’

Church sacred songs and they had the strongest distaste for fervid and revivalist hymns which they regarded as intellectually dishonest and liturgically impious.’92

At the same time it is so easy when discussing different church parties to forget that as well as having theological differences they did have things in common and both Tractarians and Evangelicals did have much in common with each other particularly in areas of their mission work at home and abroad. Temperley points to this when he lists things that both Evangelicals and Tractarians had in common. Not only were there links between what he

91 Bradley, I., 16. 92 Whittle, T., Solid Joys and Lasting Treasure, (Rose Anderson Publications,1985), 157.

64 calls the ‘high church’ and ‘low church’ parties, but he says: ‘Both (parties) were intensely loyal to the Church of England and its liturgy; both, whatever their differences of emphases, were concerned with the undeviating pursuit of holiness, sanctity, and salvation; both were minorities bent on making a greater reality out of the Church< Evangelical as well as Tractarian, and were concerned to enhance the conduct of the liturgy.’ Equally, Tractarians as well as Evangelicals recognised the importance of preaching and of hymn-singing, partly as a manifestation of theology and doctrinal proselytisation, and partly, through congregational participation, as a means of communal expression.

Finally there were personal links: most of the leading Tractarians, including Newman himself, had been raised in a strongly Evangelical atmosphere; the Wilberforce brothers, leaders in the Oxford party, were the sons of the most famous Evangelical layman of his day; Pusey, who gave the

Tractarians one of the pejorative nicknames, himself recognised the debt to

Evangelicalism as did Frederick Oakley who was closely concerned in the first Tractarian innovations in worship, and John Bacchus Dykes, the most important Tractarian composer of hymn tunes’.93

However, according to Temperley, Reginald Heber, a High

Churchman but with a certain liking for the Evangelicals, purchased a copy of

Cowper’s Olney hymns, with the music which he placed in the seats of his

Church simply to persuade the congregation to join in the singing. Using

93 Temperley, N., 1979, 250.

65 some of his own hymns too, which he published in The Christian Observer,

Heber carefully selected hymns for particular Sundays or Holy Days in the

Church’s Year and of course, related to the and Gospel for the special day. Whilst allowing his special choice of hymns to be sung between the

Nicene Creed and the sermon he stressed that he had avoided ‘all fulsome or indecorous language< erotic addresses to him whom no unclean lips can approach’. Heber’s collection drew on many sources and included some metrical psalms. His collection of hymns with the expected ‘high church bias’ entitled, Hymns written and adapted to the weekly church service of the year was published by his widow in 1827, after his death, certainly kept within liturgical bounds. L. Benson calls it, ‘Heber’s Romantic hymnal’. It prepared the minds of high churchmen for the recognition that hymns were not exclusively the property of ‘ranting dissenters’.94

Watson summarises the development of the hymn in the context of

Heber’s contribution when he says: the main body of the Church of England remained suspicious of the emotionalism associated with these hymns (i.e. from the Evangelical Revival in the hands of Toplady and Newton and Cowper’s Olney Hymns, 1779 and with ) until hymn-writing was made respectable by Reginald Heber. Heber became a , and Milman a dean, so their examples were hard to criticise, even for the prejudiced; the full glory of the Church of England hymnody was embodied in Hymns Ancient and Modern and additions became the benchmark hymn book of the Victorian age.95

94 Ibid., 263. 95 Watson, 317.

66 It is noteworthy that the founder of The Oxford Movement, Keble, also composed several poems and in publishing The Christian Year, which was a calendar of the Church’s Feast Days, he brought some degree of Christian order and a system to Church’ repertory. The Tractarians, however, also rediscovered hymns from the which had been omitted by

Cranmer from the prayer book. Nineteen post-Tridentine hymns are to be found in Hymns Ancient and Modern (Revised) (1950) and of them eleven come from a single source, namely The Paris Breviary (1736). To think that such hymns as ‘The advent of our King’ and ‘On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry’ are still sung is an indication of how important these hymns were. Certainly they altered the status of the hymn in Tractarian minds.

These discoveries of course meant that now, as Temperley rightly says,

‘there was nothing to prevent the singing of translated catholic hymns in public worship. The battle for hymns had already been won by the

Evangelicals: here was an unforseen chance to capitalise on their victory in a way that would restore a lost tradition of the ancient Church.’96 John Mason

Neale, founder of the Cambridge Camden Society, took it upon himself to research the ancient hymns of the Church. He researched early English and

Continental sources and translations of hymns eventually mastering the liturgy of medieval hymns. The Ecclesiological Society, according to Bernarr

Rainbow, ‘gave its sanction to the preparation and publication of the ancient

96 Temperley, 264.

67 hymns in translation. The principle upon which the Society had resolved to agree was to give the ancient hymns of the English Church – the word was carefully underlined – set to their ancient melodies. Gratitude was expressed to the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral, who had graciously made available on loan a copy of the Sarum Gradual from their Library. Some ninety of the hymns contained therein were to be included in the proposed hymnal.’97

So in his important venture the Hymnal Noted in two parts, (1851, 1854), comprising in the first part (1851) 46 hymns and in the second part (1854) 59, hymns with additional for Advent, Neale fulfilled his wish to provide an official hymn book that would be made up of translations of Latin hymns that had been used in England before the Reformation and set to original melodies. S. L. Ollard has commented: ‘John Mason Neale unlocked the doors of the Church’s treasuries of sacred songs, doors which had been closed for three centuries since the old Latin hymns had been disused, and by his exquisite translations he restored to English Churchmen a long forgotten part of their heritage. ‚Jerusalem the golden,‛ ‚For thee, O dear, dear country,‛ and three or four other hymns, are all part of Dr. Neale’s translation of the inspiration of Bernard of Morlaix. Nominally translations from the

Greek, but really Neale’s original work, are ‚Art thou weary, art thou

97 Rainbow, B., The Choral Revival in the Anglican Church, 1839-1872, (The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, 2001), 92.

68 languid?‛ and ‚O happy band of pilgrims‛.’98 Whilst some of the hymn translations and tunes from Neale’s Hymnal Noted, have been accepted, the structure of the hymns made it difficult both for the organist and the singers.

It seems that the archaic notation and the unfamiliar modes would make it difficult for the congregations to adopt. Having said that, what had been achieved for the acceptance of Tractarian hymnody was the fact that the hymns were fitted in to worship after the third , or instead of an anthem. Two of the most successful examples of hymn poetry of this period were written by Mrs Cecil Alexander, ‘There is a green hill far away’ and

‘Once in royal David’s city’. Over the months and years during this exciting period, there is no doubt that, musically, there was a greater boldness and freedom in the context of harmony and as Temperley points out, ‘the discovery of the medieval hymn and consequent change of attitude towards hymn-singing in general, paved the way for a fruitful synthesis of Evangelical and Tractarian ideals in the Victorian hymn tune.'99 More importantly,

Anglicanism sought to re-invent its tradition of hymnody, and, in so doing, it encouraged, indeed nurtured a much larger artistic Gestalt, in which the hymn, formerly a humble and uncomplicated vocal offering, was influenced profoundly by its differing artistic elements – poetry, music, environment, theology and ritual – gave rise to an intricate result much greater than the

98 Ollard, S. L., A Short History of The Oxford Movement, (A. R. Mowbray: Oxford, 1915), 206. 99 Temperley, 267.

69 sum of its individual parts. In fact, it might be argued, that the Tractarians were perhaps unaware of the foundations they laid and what future generations owed to them in terms of their imaginative legacy.

70 Chapter Two

Cranmer’s The Book of Common Prayer

and

Keble’s The Christian Year.

2.1 The Book of Common Prayer

‘I believe that there is no liturgy in this world, either in ancient or modern language, which breeds more of solid, scriptural, rational piety, than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.’

John Wesley, 1784.

Any showing some degree of interest in Tractarian hymnody may be forgiven for asking what possible connection might exist in a chapter devoted to Thomas

Cranmer’s BCP or John Keble’s Christian Year until it becomes evident that, with the former devotional aid, a place, albeit small, was provided for music within the strict setting of Anglican worship. This has been described by Buchanan as ‘the thin end of the wedge’, 1 but it was later to become a much more firmly embedded wedge and with a firmer musical, indeed professional foothold. With regards to giving space for a consideration of The Christian Year, it will become clear, as research in the areas of

‘religious metre and poetic rhyme’ and ‘inspired melody’ has already demonstrated, that music found an affinity and resonance in John Keble’s verse and was central in spawning the art of the Tractarian hymn itself.

1 Buchanan, C., ‘Music in the context of Anglican Liturgy’, in Sheldon, R., (ed.), In Spirit and in Truth, (Hodder and Stoughton, London: 1989),101.

71 Having, therefore, briefly examined the Tracts for the Times with special reference to those tracts which, for our purpose, explore Tractarian worship and hymnody – as it affected the ‘Antiquity of the Existing Liturgies’ (in Tract No. 63), the liturgical changes since the Reformation of ‘the sanctity of the ancient forms of worship’ as demonstrated by Isaac William’s (in Tract No. 86), and the ‘Roman

Breviary’ embodying the substance of the Devotional Services of the Church

Catholic (in Tract No. 75) – it is inevitable that our research must at some juncture interact closely with Cranmer’s BCP, regarded quintessentially as the Anglican

Church’s Service Book. Everything needful in this compact manual is present and self-contained except for the fact that not all the psalms and specified lessons are printed in full. Anthems, hymns and sermon topics for each liturgical occasion are also absent.

However, taking into account these minor deficiencies, modern scholarship tells us that this book really fulfils what the earlier Missal, Breviary Manual and

Pontifical of the Roman Catholic Church were designed to do2. Leaders of the

Tractarian (or Oxford) Movement naturally saw the germane importance of the BCP as necessary for a liturgical understanding of the way in which had been ordered and worked out over many centuries within the liturgical calendar.

It is interesting that Cranmer was able, through the BCP, to preserve a dignified, reverent and spiritual style, whilst at the same time, through his careful articulation of Tudor English (full of poetical language and turns of phrase which appeal to so

2 Scholes, P. A.190.

72 many today in opposition to the contemporary ‘colloquial’ vernacular), compete with other literary figures of his day. Beckwith draws attention to these facts when he affirms that ‘Cranmer was a child of the Renaissance no less than of the Reformation’ and adds: his greatest gifts became apparent when he took a share in the task of reviving English vernacular literature, by creating an English Liturgy. The Book of Common Prayer has an originality and power which are often lacking both in Reformation liturgies and in attempts to restore the worship of the primitive Church. Though owing something to its Latin antecedents and sharing the redundancies characteristic of Tudor English, it achieves the difficult art of being contemporary without being colloquial, of having dignity without sacrificing vigour, and of expressing fervour without lapsing into sentimentality.3

It is true that attempts had been made to reform the BCP by the Puritan wing of the

Church of England in the 1580s, in 1689 and from 1772 to 1773, but the school of

Horsley, Daubney and Van Mildert clung to the idea that the BCP did in fact stem from apostolic times and therefore conformed with Catholic antiquity. Nockles, anxious to show that the BCP drew its liturgical function from antiquity and could provide spiritual help as well as scriptural edification, comments with some force: the aim was to emphasise the ‘catholic’ and ‘primitive’ liturgical continuity of the Church of England<.Van Mildert had pointed out that the ‘Ritual of the Romish Church, though composed in the Latin tongue, and clogged with many superstitions and exceptionable forms, was yet in many parts of it, truly scriptural, and well calculated for the comfort and edification of pious worshippers.

Van Mildert reminded contemporaries that ‘some of the most admired parts of our Book of Common Prayer are taken almost literally from the Romish Ritual: and this, far from being any just objection to it, proves that the compilers were guided by the genuine spirit of moderation and Christian candour.

3 Beckwith, R. T., ‘ and The Prayer Book’ in Jones, C., Wainright, G., Yarnold, E., (eds.), The Study of Liturgy, (S.P.C.K.,1970), 73.

73 Palmer adopted a similar line in his learned Origines Liturgicae (1832), in which he insisted that, although our liturgy and other offices were corrected and improved, the greater portion of our prayers have been continually retained and used by the Church of England for more than twelve hundred years.4

Summarising the theological position in which the roots of the Anglican liturgy were discovered in the Early Fathers, a factor considered central to Tractarians, Chadwick also affirms: ‘in appealing to antiquity, Tractarians examined the Book of Common

Prayer, understood in their historical context, commanded daily worship, frequent celebrations and more ornaments and vestures than were commonly to be found in

English parish churches.’5

There has no doubt been much grafting and recasting of material to produce what we see as the liturgy of the BCP. Historians have suggested that the Gallican features were added from the Norman period as well as detailed influences from continental reformers such as Luther and Bucer and also from the Sarum rite and from York, Bangor and Hereford6. However, as is set out in the Preface to the BCP, it was the compiler’s aim to secure uniformity. Indeed, as we have already noted in the previous chapter, the subject of Tract No. 86, was entitled ‘Superintending

Providence in the Preservation of the Prayer Book’ whilst the subject at issue in Tract

No. 84 was the question as to whether a ‘Clergyman of the Church of England ought to be bound to say Morning and Evening prayers daily in his Parish church’. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Tractarian leaders looked to the BCP as containing

4 Nockles, P. B.,1994, 219-220 5 Chadwick, O., The Spirit of the Oxford Movement, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge:1992),47. 6 Scholes, 190.

74 all the necessary features to become the authoritative guide for priest and people. As a sustaining liturgical ‘staple diet’ it was compiled with the aim providing a devotional book, written in the English language, simple to understand and with a condensed version of the Latin services of the medieval Church’s sacramental rites, together with the .

The BCP, from its earliest form as the ‘Prayer Book’ of Edward VI in 1549, to the ‘Elizabethan Prayer Book’ of 1559, and then, finally, to its revision in 1662, became both a devotional and for Anglicans as well as a manual for worshippers who not only saw the weekly re-enactment of the event in the celebration of the Eucharist but, more importantly, saw this important Christian event, together with Christmas and , as pivot points around which all other festivals and celebrations revolved. Each celebration in the BCP has its own Collect,

Epistle and Gospel. G. J. Cuming lists the contents of the BCP which, he asserts, have remained almost unchanged for 300 years. Following the three prefaces, tables of psalms and lessons and much calendrical matter, the services included are:

Morning and Evening Prayer The litany, prayers and thanksgiving Collects, Epistles and Gospels Holy Communion Baptism (public, private. and for those of riper years) Catechism and Confirmation Matrimony Visitation and Communion to the Sick Burial of the Dead Commination The Psalms Ordination Services (, priests and )

75 Forms of Prayer used at Sea State Services.

The Psalter, either in the translation of the Great , (Coverdale), or in metrical form (Sternhold and Hopkins), had often been bound up with the BCP, but now became an integral part of it; and the same is true of the ordinal. The state services added in 1662 were withdrawn in 1859; an accession service was a normal part of the book from Queen Anne onwards; the Thirty-Nine Articles, though customarily printed at the end of the book, have never formed part of it.7

Several of the forms of services are, quite naturally, adaptations of the mediaeval Matins and Vespers from the of long ago. There is no doubt that Thomas Cranmer’s vision and liturgical plan was clear judging from the two statements in their respective Prefaces ‘Concerning the Service of the Church’ and ‘Of Ceremonies’.8 With regard to his liturgical aims, Beckwith pointed out that:

He seeks to attain intelligibility, edification and corporateness, by producing for regular use, a single simple liturgy in the vernacular, in which the Scriptures are read and expounded in an orderly way, biblical teaching is incorporated throughout, all that is misleading or meaningless is excluded, words are audible, actions are visible, and congregational participation in speaking, singing, and reception of the sacraments (in both kinds) is encouraged.9

To show some of the significant liturgical changes that Cranmer effected from the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII, Beckwith goes on to comment that the language of the Prayer Book was, of course, altered from Latin to English to encourage

7 Cumming, G. J., ‘Books Liturgical’ 4, in Davies. J. G., (ed.), A Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, (S. P. C. K.), London, 1978), 83. 8 Ibid., 8-10. 9 Beckwith, 73.

76 congregational participation and comprehension, the reformed, the rubrics simplified, the biblical content of most services increased, and many service books reduced to one, but also to the fact that the homiletic art and authority of preaching was revived and the opportunities for people to receive the sacrament of Holy

Communion increased.

Whilst the congregation had also been given greater participation in the regular services of the Church, they no longer were party to other extraneous Roman practices: the traditional doctrines and practices which Cranmer judged to be in conflict with biblical theology (notably the sacrifice of the , , reservation, the confessional, the invocation of saints, and petition for the departed) have been removed. The fact that his second Prayer Book received only minor revisions in 1559, 1604, and 1662, and in its 1662 form is widely used in England and other parts of the world, is a tribute to his achievement which is not easy to gainsay.10

But, quite apart from stressing the importance of collective and congregational worship, the Tractarians, were not slow to see the importance of daily worship as part of the new movement’s pastoral vision.

It was who, in reflecting on the apathetic, not to say atrophied state of the Church Service, noted with marked dissatisfaction: ‘What a sad state of things it is, that the public manifestation of religion in Christian England should be almost confined, as a general rule, to one day in the week.’11 Certainly

Tractarians saw the rites of Baptism, the Catechism and Holy Communion as public events, the latter event regarded, as Skinner points out, ‘not as a personal communion

10 Ibid.,74. 11 Oakeley, F., ‘The Church Service’ in The British Critic, xxvii, 54, (April, 1840), 266.

77 with Christ but in social terms as ‘the sacred Banquet’, and held regularly and not only three or four times a year.’12 As an example of regular daily services held in some Parish churches, Skinner also refers to the Parish Church of Bisley in 1827, where for Thomas Keble, John Keble’s brother, the daily service of Morning and

Evening Prayer, plainly a common feature of the Tractarian ministry, was a regular daily occurrence and, in substantiating this feature of Tractarianism, drew attention to the number of services which had exceeded one thousand a year by 1864, especially in many London parishes.13

In summary one might say that, with the regular promotion of the daily services of Morning and Evening Prayer, driven as they were by a renewed adherence to the BCP, the priest’s regular visiting programme in the parish, demonstrating his pastoral care, his simple but effective preaching and the abolition of church pews, were manifestations of the church’s presence and purpose within the local community. As Skinner has accentuated: stamping the parish ministry in the centre of social life. First-generation Tractarians constantly exhorted churchmen to social inclusiveness. They exhorted clergymen to preach plainly, to demolish box pews in favour of open seats, to solicit their poorest parishioners, and to schedule their services to the convenience of manual labourers<.. they also exhorted wealthy laymen not merely to donate to charitable agencies, but to fraternise directly with the poor, and to learn from their humility and resignation.14

There seems no doubt therefore, that, for the Tractarians, the BCP was the ideal format for worship and more and more parishes were being asked to follow its pattern.

12 Ibid.,158. 13 Ibid.,159. 14 Ibid.,186-187.

78 The reason for accentuating the importance of the BCP to Anglican Worship here is to underline the fundamental point that those elements of the vernacular and the increased emphasis on congregational worship and participation provided the vital backdrop to the gestation of the Anglican Church’s rich musical tradition, and, more significantly in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and especially nineteenth centuries, to the hymn. Moreover, the groundswell of the Tractarian revival’s renewed emphasis on the BCP meant that the hymn would enjoy an importance within the matrix of the Tractarian love of order and spirituality.

Whilst there has never been an authorised musical edition to the BCP, there was a place in both the services of Morning and Evening Prayer with the marked indication, ‘In Quires and places where they sing, here followeth the Anthem’15 a place in the format where, in actual practice, the choir, representing the congregation, might offer a more formal choral item. In connection with the term ‘Anthem’ and writing in the Oxford Church Text Book of 1925, J. H. Maude, formerly Fellow and Dean of

Hertford College, Oxford, has illuminated the following: both Mattins and had hitherto ended with the third collect

15 The BCP, (Folio Society, 2006), 65 & 81. 16 Maude, J. H., the History of The BCP, (Rivingtons, Covent Garden, London: 1925), 79.

79 Representing the congregation, composers were only too ready to provide a suitable anthem or two metrical hymns in which the congregation may readily participate. In clarifying permission for congregational participation and listing the canticles used at Morning and Evening Prayer and other seasons, Percy Scholes affirms that: there were places where in the singing of one or two metrical hymns (not mentioned in the Prayer Book though allowed by the Injunctions of 1559), the people could vocally join in the service. Where the psalms are concerned, the makes provision for the reading or singing of the whole of the Psalms in rotation, the complete book being gone through in a month of daily morning and evening services. In Morning Prayer, the 95th Psalm (Venite), is normally sung before the Psalms for the day.

The Canticles are as follows: At Morning Prayer the (or at certain seasons, the Benedicite) and the Benedictus (or, on one or more occasions, the Jubilate) ; at Evening Prayer, the Magnificat (or rarely, the 97th Psalm, Cantate Domino) and the Nunc Dimittis (or rarely again, the 67th Psalm, Deus Misereatur)17

Where the service of Holy Communion was concerned, Scholes further maintains that: passages from the Sarum Rite were chorally set: these included the , Gloria in excelsis, Credo, and (without its Bendictus qui venit section) and, though the setting of the Agnus Dei does not occur in the BCP, both this and the Benedictus settings were declared lawful by the Lincoln judgements of 1892. Translated adaptations of the Roman Mass had also become available.18

If the service of Mattins became an amalgamation of the old office of Mattins,

Lauds and Prime, whilst Evensong became a substitute for Vespers and , it is equally important that the Parish Church received a balanced yet complete spiritual and scriptural diet throughout the year. On this matter, Gatens comments are of

17 Scholes, 190. 18 Ibid.,191.

80 considerable significance in outlining the equilibrium of the liturgy and the avoidance of extremities: lessons were chosen so as to cover the greater part of the Bible during the course of the year; secondly, that the Book of Psalms was divided into sixty more or less equal segments assigned to the morning and evening of each day of the month; thirdly, ( as we have noted already), the 1662 Prayer Book was the first to make explicit provision for the anthem; fourthly, that as Morning and Evening Prayer were derived from the Catholic , so the Prayer Book Holy Communion Service was derived from the Catholic mass, but simplified and items arranged differently. By the early nineteenth century, the normal Sunday morning service consisted of an accumulation of Morning Prayer, Litany, and Holy Communion. In many places, there might be an actual communion as seldom as four times a year, in which case, the weekly Communion service (or properly, the ante-Communion) would end after the Prayer for the Church Militant. Even where there was a weekly communion, the choir generally dispersed at this point, the remainder of the service would be conducted without music.19

One must not forget, of course, the important part played by the Cambridge Camden

Society, founded by John Mason Neale (1818-1866) and the way it concerned itself not only with

Gothic architecture and appropriate structural symbolism, but also with a programme of researching the traditions of Christian worship, forever looking back to the direct translations of

English liturgy from the pre-Reformation Sarum period, the period of the , the harmonic styles of the Renaissance and the formation of bodies such as the ‘Motett Society’ to promote interests in ‘pure’ church music.

In connection with further liturgical developments as well as the development of the hymn, Temperley draws attention to the fact that: whilst Cranmer’s Litany and Marbeck’s Book of Common Praier Noted were recommended, responses to the commandments in the 1552 Prayer Book were adapted and Tallis’s harmonisation which had been reprinted by William Crotch, were also used in Tractarian churches. Another great contribution of the Tractarians to public worship was the liturgical hymn, which rapidly completed the transformation of ‘psalmody into hymnody’ in the Church of England.20

It was such a relief when congregations could actually take part in the worship by way of singing the prayers and making responses in the liturgical settings. With the recovery of Psalm

19 Gatens , W., Victorian Music in Theory and Practice, (Cambridge: University Press, 1986), 12- 14. 20 Temperley, N., 262.

81 tunes, Sarum melodies, Plainsong tunes and German chorales from the past, all of which were allowed to be fitted into the liturgy either after the third Collect, instead of the Anthem, or even before the service commenced or after the service had ended. It is most noticeable therefore, that the hymn was slowly being accepted more and more into the worship of parish churches. Another interesting development, as Temperley remarks, is the fact that ‘the discovery of the Latin hymns of the Roman Breviary were Catholic as well as Evangelical. In translating these and reviving the tunes that went with them, they not only enriched the store of English hymns, but changed the status of the hymn itself from an unauthorised addition to an integral part of the service of publish worship.’21

That riots should break out at St Barnabas’ Church, Pimlico and St George’s in the East in

1850 on account of the inclination in those churches to focus on symbolic matters such as decorating their altars with candles and , using vestments such as the , the and as well as incense, may seem extreme by the standard of today’s liturgically uneducated public, but at the time the changes were considerable, and Lord John Russell’s ‘Papal

Aggression did little to alleviate the state of religio-political turbulence that the Church of England was undergoing. However, despite such turmoil, the ritualist innovations and traditions did progress slowly introducing their new ideas with surpliced choirs in facing choir stalls, the use of incense and the acceptance of church organs for accompaniment and the singing of anthems.

Thanks to Thomas Helmore and his brother missionary, Frederick, who did so much to cultivate the Tractarian musical ideal and who proved that it was possible to teach and train choirs and congregations to sing even unfamiliar but true church music, many people could learn to sing. How important it was that congregations could participate in the Holy Communion Service even if the spiritual meditative and sacred aspects of this rite became coloured musically and often enhanced and improved in my opinion, with adaptations from Gounod, Haydn, Mozart and other well known composers.

21 Ibid., 262.

82 Temperley, focusing on Thomas Helmore’s need to teach congregations liturgical settings of the Holy Communion services and including in them adaptations of secular works of well known composers, maintains that, in fact, his prescription for musical progress lay in teaching people the music of the entire communion service.

He recommended several settings, and even approved the adaptation of Gounod’s Mass in B flat with harp which has lately been introduced with charming effect in St Andrew’s, Well’s Street’. At All Saints Margaret Street, they have for many years used more questionable adaptations from the masses of Haydn and Mozart, part I believe of the service being taken from one, or another from the other of these great composers: an objectionable practice, in my opinion. For plainer singing he recommended Marbeck for the choir and people together, or another plainsong service (adapted) from the Missa de Angelis’ as used at St Alban’s Holborn. He also suggested, ‚prefixes, affixes‛, and additional music introduced into the body of the service such as the ‘Agnus Dei’, Eucharistic hymns and sequences between the Epistle and the Gospel, peculiarly suitable in high celebrations during the preparations for the reading of the holy Gospel.22

Even greater colouring of the liturgical drama of Holy Communion by adding more congregational hymns became important in the interests of choral worship, the aim of which was after all, to the glory of God, and Temperley further comments on this additional development when he remarks:

The interspersing of other hymns than those already provided in the body of the service, if a license, as I suppose we must allow, it is yet so justified on the grounds of convenience, edification, spiritual comfort and above all Catholic usage, that we may claim allowance for the practice, above all from those who themselves break the continuity of their services, according to the present prayer-book order, by the introduction of a metrical psalm or hymn before the morning sermon, immediately after the , or between the second lesson of the evening prayer and the ‘Nunc Dimittis’.23

As the Tractarian revival continued and clergy and were keen to get involved in parish work it was John Newman, who supported all endeavours in many parishes by sending ‘parcels of tracts and other publications, placing them in shops of local booksellers and newsagents, introducing them to clerical meetings and converting more or less their Rectors and brother .’ It was inevitable therefore that the liturgical scene would change radically and this began from 1839 and lost no sense of momentum throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. Whilst the services of Mattins, Evensong and Holy Communion were made simpler and alternative methods

22 Ibid., 272. 23 Ibid., 272.

83 had been found to solve the problem of the chanting of psalms, there was an increase in musical material made available for Church worship. There is no doubt that if Havergal’s Old Church

Psalmody (1847) preserved the best of the old psalm tunes and Neale and Helmore’s Hymnal Noted

(1852) restored the ancient Sarum melodies, Frances Cox’s Sacred Hymns from the German (1841) and Catherine Winkworth’s Lyra Germanica (1855) promoted the German chorales. Eventually all these expressions of musical inspiration were to lead to the first edition in 1861 of Hymns Ancient and Modern with new tunes by Dykes, Ouseley, Monk, Barnby, Gauntlett, Hopkins and Stainer.

Bernarr Rainbow commenting on HA&M says:

Of the 113 hymn tunes contained in the Appendix of Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1868, more than half were being printed for the first time. Tunes contributed by Dykes, Smart, Elvey, Stainer and Barnby, amounted to no less than 36 of the total. In style those new tunes reflected the changed musical taste of the day, many more reminiscent of the part songs than of the stalwart classic hymn. But the emotional surge of such new tunes as Barnby’s Cloisters appealed to the Victorian churchgoer, and won the day for the book.24

As due appraisal was given to the BCP and its place as the model for Tractarian worship and meditation it is interesting to observe the way in which liturgy has developed in the light of the Church’s ‘growing respectability’ and been shaped according to Susan White’s description as

‘domestic to a public setting’, adopting what she describes as ‘the trappings of imperial court ritual’.25

White also draws attention to the way in which liturgy is being understood for musicians and theologians in English Parish Churches, as well as for the future generations of worshippers when she makes the following apposite remarks:

Liturgy is the public worship of the church, the body of communal, religious rituals that gives structure, definition and experience to the relationship between God and the company of Christian believers. Although traditional definitions stress the equalities of ceremonial precision and formality, liturgy happens wherever religious experience evokes particular patterned human responses. The story of liturgy then is essentially the story of the ways in which complex social

24 Rainbow, B., The Choral Revival in the Anglican Church, 1839-1972, (The Boydell Press, 2001), 294. 25 White, S. W., ‘Liturgy’ in Hastings, A.S., Mason, A., Pyper, H., The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought,(Oxford University Press, Oxford: 2000), 392.

84 cultural and theological forces have shaped the various ritual responses to the experience of God in Christ.26

Whilst White looks at other pertinent liturgical issues such as those related to the continuing debate of Jewish and in the First Century, the impact that

‘’ had on the shape of the liturgy, the ‘Anointing of the sick’, the singing of ‘Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs’ recommended to the Christians at Ephesus, as well as the rise of liturgical scholarship in the nineteenth century with further investigation as to the ancient roots of

Christian liturgy, she also draws out what she calls: the differences that liturgy has had on Evangelical worship on the one hand, and Romanticism on the other as is evidenced in the use of Church buildings. If in the former, the central icon would be the pulpit where preachers inspired the Evangelical revival, in the latter the focus would be on the altar in neo- Gothic surrounds where the focus would be on the Sacramental dimension of worship.27

Cyprian Love offers yet another focal aspect on the subject of ‘Music as Liturgical

Revelation’, and sees theology as ‘encounter’, presumably drawing on Martin Heidegger’s three essential dimensions within the human personality i.e. ‘the capacity for language’, an awareness of ‘temporality’ and a capacity for ‘art’, Several conclusions emerge from his paper ‘Liturgy’:

Firstly, that a central aim of Christian liturgy is the elicitation and expression of various supernatural hopes; secondly, if faith, liturgy and sacramental life are directed towards hope, then music is one of the things people must nourish; thirdly, the anthropological and complementarity between hope and music find historical expression in the Christian liturgy, for liturgy has made constant use of music from earliest times; fourthly, music in liturgy is also a socially unifying force; fifthly, that in the combined history of Judaism and Christianity, it is the Psalter which contains the most influential biblical texts and of course texts that are sung from an early age and often taught at mother's knee; sixthly, it is and through liturgy surrounded by music, which infiltrates the set orders of baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist, that our very identities are assisted, nourished and given grace and hope of salvation.

In conclusion Love maintained that musical hearing and free expression in music are where the element of ‘reality’ is first disclosed to the human person, a reality that is also fundamentally hopeful:

26 Ibid., 391-392. 27 Ibid., 392-393.

85 Music is to be understood here as including speech music, for, in our earliest experience, speech and music are linked. This integral relationship between music, speech and the real, will be enlisted by Christianity, which offers an enhanced revelation of the real and what we may hope for.28

2.2 The Christian Year

‘bringing thoughts and feelings into more entire unison with those recommended and exemplified in the Prayer Book.’

Preface to The Christian Year, John Keble.

‘Much certainly came of the Christian Year: it was the most soothing, tranquilizing, subduing work of the day; if poems can be found to enliven in dejection, and to comfort in anxiety; to cool the over-sanguine, to refresh the weary, and to awe the worldly; to instil resignation into the impatient, and calmness into the fearful and agitated-they are these.’

John Newman, The Works of John Henry Newman Essays 1, 441, 39 Volumes ( London, 1898-1903).

If Thomas Cranmer’s gifts demonstrated a revival in English literature providing daily worship through a liturgy for The Anglican Church in the BCP, it was John Keble, one of the central Tractarian leaders, a

Professor of Poetry at Oxford and ordained priest in the Church of

England, who was to produce The Christian Year, a literary work and compendium of devotional poetry for the and designed as Tennyson says ‘to enhance devotion, to advance Christian truth in a

28 Love, C., ‘Music as Liturgical Revelation’, in The Irish Theological Quarterly, 69, (The Pontifical University, Maynooth, 2004), 225-238.

86 form to its august character. It is the work of the quintessential

Tractarian poet-priest ‚seeking the Deity in poetry and prayer‛’.29

Extolling the virtues of Keble’s literary abilities, Geoffrey Rowell also draws attention to the lasting of Keble’s work and influences and whose presence, without doubt, acted as the very catalyst of the

Oxford Movement:

Those who responded to the Assize Sermon as a symbol of protest on behalf of the Church – and not all churchmen who heard it saw it as such – did so as much because of the preacher as for what he had to say. John Keble’s reputation as a man who had gained a double First, as the poet who was the author of The Christian Year, and as a priest whose pastoral gifts and holiness of life deeply influenced those who came in contact with him, ensured that his words had great force. Dean Church [of St Paul’s Cathedral and commentator on the Oxford Movement+ described him as ‘the true and primary author of the Oxford Movement, and he brought to that Movement an upbringing in the tradition of Anglican high churchmanship as well as his poetic sensitivity’.30

In addition to reflecting on Keble’s life and scholarly gifts, Rowell accounts for

Keble’s influence, by pointing to two things: the volume of poetry, the Christian Year, which he published in 1827, with its poems built around the festivals and fasts and services of the Book of Common Prayer, and the magnetism of his own unaffected holiness of life. He was a man of firm faith, which was a deeply felt religion of the heart, but where the heart was not worn on the sleeve. He had a natural sense of awe and wonder at the mystery of God, and a consciousness of the limitation of human language in speaking of God. He shunned ecclesiastical gossip and theological slogans; he taught the importance of a proper reverence and reserve.31

29 Tennyson, G. B., 75. 30 Rowell, G., The Vision Glorious-Themes and Personalities of the Catholic Revival in Anglicanism, (Oxford University Press: Oxford: 1983),22. 31 Ibid., 23.

87 Keble’s Preface to The Christian Year provides, in its ‘Advertisement ’, a seminal ‘preamble’ on the values of Tractarianism and its inextricable link with the

BCP:

Next to a sound rule of faith, there is nothing of so much consequence as a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical religion: and it is the peculiar happiness of the Church of England to possess, in her authorised formularies, an ample and secure provision for both. But in this time of much leisure and unbounded curiosity when excitement of every kind is sought after with a morbid eagerness, this part of the merit of our Liturgy is likely in some measure to be lost, on many even of its sincere admirers: the very tempers, which most require such discipline, setting themselves, in general most decidedly against it. The object of the present publication will be attained, if any person finds assistance from it in bringing his own thoughts and feelings into more entire unison with those recommended and exemplified in The Prayer Book. The work does not furnish a complete series of compositions; being, in many parts, rather adapted with more or less propriety to the successive portions of the liturgy, than originally suggested by them. Something has been added at the end concerning the several Occasional Services: which constitute, from their personal and domestic nature, the most perfect instance of that soothing tendency in the Prayer Book, which it is the chief purpose of these pages to exhibit.32

As is well known, the format of The Christian Year takes in the respective main and recurrent festivals of Christmas and Easter as well as other festivals such as

Advent, , the Sundays of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, Ash

Wednesday, (the beginning of Lent), , , Ascension Day and Pentecost as well as and the Sundays after Trinity until Advent completes the cycle. What is interesting is the fact that both Keble’s The Christian Year and Reginald Heber’s Hymns written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the

Year, both adapted to the requirements of the Anglican Church’s liturgical year, should have been published anonymously and about the same time (i.e. 1827).

In fact, both publications reveal the Zeitgeist of an Anglican zeal and desire to restore to worship that former richness of calendrical order (in both the temporal and

32 Keble, J., The Christian Year, Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the year, The Eighth Edition, (Oxford J. H. Parker: F.J.Rivington, London, 1846), v & vi.

88 sanctoral feasts) with its inherent colour and discipline. Scholars such as Tennyson have indeed suggested this fact as a superior issue to that of Keble’s own personal spirituality: ‘it is the Easter event that constitutes the essence of Sunday Eucharistic worship, so that the week itself is seen in terms of a re-enactment every seven days of the central event of Christian history. As Keble wrote in his poem for Easter:

‚Sundays by thee *that is, Easter+ more glorious break/An Easter Day in every week.‛33 Besides providing poems for the recurrent festivals and the sacramental observances of Baptism, and Holy Communion, it is interesting that, upon examination, this devotional book of reflective poems, developed out of the

Tractarian poetics of ‘Analogy and Reserve’, incorporates accompanying verse for the teaching of ‘The Catechism’, the service of ‘Confirmation’, ‘Matrimony’,

‘Visitation of the Sick’, ‘Burial of the Dead’, the ‘Churching of Women’, as well as forms of prayer to be used at Sea, and even appropriate verse for ‘Gunpowder

Treason’, ‘King Charles the Martyr’ and the ‘Restoration of the Royal Family’. It also contains poems entitled, ‘The Groans of Nature’, (Fourth Sunday after Trinity’), ‘The

Redbreast in September’, (Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity), ‘The Flowers of the

Field’, (Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity), ‘Hope is better than Ease’, (Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity), to quote but a few.

The format and arrangement of the poetic verse of The Christian Year followed closely the settings contained in the BCP. The Christian Year which was published anonymously on the advice of friends in 1827, soon became very popular for many

33 Tennyson, 76.

89 Anglican worshippers and served as an appendage to the Prayer Book and as a guide to the changing emotional and spiritual periods of the Christian calendar.34

According to Bradley, ‘it sold 108,000 copies in twenty five years and went into forty- three editions. Although it was not designed as a hymnal, nearly a hundred of its verses were adapted for use as hymns, including the very popular ‘New every morning is the love’.35

Drawing attention to the stylish and graciousness of Keble’s verse, Julian maintained that ‘The Christian Year, as well as Lyra Innocentium, reflected to a remarkable degree the surroundings of the writer. Keble all his life long, and never more than in the earlier portion of it, before he wrote, and when he was writing The

Christian Year, breathed an atmosphere of culture and refinement,36 and these works, perhaps along with Heber’s important work, provided an all-important model for future Tractarian poets in their conception and construction of religious verse.

As if to accentuate the importance to the Tractarian movement of teaching and nurturing children, the sub-title of Lyra Innocentium is ‘Thoughts in verse on Christian Children’, in other words poems composed especially for teachers and nurses and those who care for the young with verses which deal with aspects of a child’s spiritual and moral development, ‘Their Ways, and

Their Privileges’. Although not in chronological order, the poems in this volume deal with

‘Children’s Sports’, ‘Children’s Troubles’, ‘Holy Baptism’, ‘Cradle Songs, and under the heading of

‘Early Warnings’, it also deals with ‘Effect of Example’, ‘Envy’, ‘Irreverence in Church’ and in the largest section of the volume, which is entitled, ‘Holy Places and Things’, one is introduced to such

34 Tennyson, Appendix 228. 35 Bradley, I, The Penguin Book of Hymns, (Viking, 1989) 62-63. 36 Julian, J. A., A Dictionary of , (Dover Publications, 1957),611.

90 topics as ‘Relics and Memorials’, ‘Preparing for ’, and ‘Walk to Church’. Such

‘innocent’ verse became immensely popular to the Victorian sensibility and the simple, uncomplicated language, though often considered now to be mawkish and overly sentimental, was nevertheless part and parcel of the Victorian ‘invention’ of childhood. In addition, with the fascination for nature implicit in the romantic poetry of the early nineteenth century, Keble inevitably allied a portion of his poetic gifts to nature poetry, to the landscape and to the ‘miracle’ of the earth’s bounty. In the section devoted to ‘Lessons in Nature’, his emphasis is on ‘The

Gleaners’ and begins with the caption ‘the Church is one wide harvest field’. Such interest in

Britain’s egrarian economy and the life of its workers (albeit romanticised in some cases as pastoral idyll) underpinned the Tractarian desire to establish the harvest as ‘feast’ within the calendar, an initiative which in turn spawned a tradition of hymns.

A few years later came the publication of Lyra Apostolica, a volume of poetry entirely distinct from Lyra Innocentium. Edited by , these poems were published in The

British Magazine between 1833 and 1836 and had a more militant ‘ring’ to them. Whilst it is true that some poems are of a private devotional character, there is undoubtedly running through some of them a sense of radicalism and reform which ran to the heart of the Tractarian aspiration for a change in the Church’s relation with society and the world. The poems were certainly aimed at reaching a wider audience challenged and charged with the tone and spirit of mission. Whilst several poets, such as Isaac Williams, John William Bowden, Hurrell Froude and Robert Isaac

Wilberforce contributed to Lyra Apostolica, it is noted that out of the 179 contributions, 109 came from the pen of John Newman whilst 70 others were written by Keble himself.

Returning to John Keble’s The Christian Year the question always asked is whether, in compiling his volume of devotional poems, he relied on previous poetic collections on which to model his ideas. Addressing this question is not straightforward, since, as scholars will readily admit, the collection of hymns known as Hymns for All the Festivals of the Christian Year by

91 Venantius Fortunatus, considered a germane document in its content and purpose to the

Tractarians, has been lost.37

It is also doubtful as to whether Keble knew George Wither’s thirty- five Hymns and Songs of the Church (1623), made up of Biblical hymns and spiritual songs, many of them written for the seasons of the Christian year (the first sixteen of them are in fact liturgically wedded to some of the important festivals of the Church). Again, whilst it is true that Keble’s mind may have been stimulated by some seventeenth-century poets whose inspiration helped him to fit poetry into the liturgical pattern of a year, it must be said that his poems were collected over a number of years and some of them, whilst being set for a particular Sunday, do not always tally with the specific feast day or the Eucharistic celebration in question and on the prescribed date within the cycle of the Church’s calendar. Nevertheless, The Christian Year, with its illustrative poetry of pastoral scenery, reminders of biblical events and religious iconography, certainly created a new and vital awareness for religious expression and because of what might be described as a ‘symbiotic function’ with the BCP, it had the desired effect of reminding the Church that it was indeed

‘incarnational’; in other words, it was ‘on earth’.38

One may also posit that the selection of verses from Keble’s The Christian Year was also a reminder that Christian Church was worshipful and vocal in its prayer and praise and, as it is hoped to demonstrate later, several poems in The Christian Year, have been adapted because of their spiritual character as well as their poetic metre to be used as hymns. Some scholars see the substance of Keble's poetic writing as a kind of 'nature typology’ where objects in the natural world point to the sometimes hidden truths of natural and revealed religion in a sacramental way.

Keble would classify such hidden and guarded reverential truth under the headings of ‘Analogy and Reserve’. If then, according to Wordsworth, ‘nature’ can teach us so much about life and living, whether through the beauty of flowers, their fragrances, the song of the birds, the light of the moon

37 Tennyson, 215. 38 Ibid., 87.

92 and sun or the ‘babbling brooks’, Keble, emulating this pattern of thought, would maintain that collectively as well as individually, ‘we can see God in ‘everything’. This certainly comes to light in his poem, ‘There is a book, who runs may read’ for ‘Septuagesima Sunday’ under the heading of the biblical text from Romans Chapter 1: verse 20 (‘the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made’). A few verses have been selected from this poem below, to illustrate this example of ‘nature typology’:

There is a book, who runs may read, Which heavenly truth imparts, And all the lore its scholars need, Pure eyes and Christian hearts.

The works of God above, below Within us and around, Are pages in that book, to show How God Himself is found.

Verses three to nine of this poem focus on ‘the sky’, ‘the Moon’ and its borrowed ray from the Sun, the elements of ‘light and heat’, ‘the dew from heaven’, ‘the sea’, ‘the raging fire’, ‘the two worlds’ - until the final verse quoted below offers challenge and reads :

Thou who hast given me eyes to see, And love this sight so fair, Give me a heart to find out Thee, And read Thee everywhere.

This poem (set to Psalm 47) was set to the tune TRANMERE in common metre by William

Hayes in his Sixteen Psalms Selected from the Revd Mr Merrick's’ Version; Set to Music for the use of

Mad. Coll : Chapel in Oxford (c.1774), and the hymn is found in HA&M (Supplement Edition).39

Any reference to poetic verses from The Christian Year being adapted to music for congregational singing in HA&M or other hymnal, immediately flags up musical interest because of its possible bearing and influence on Tractarian hymnody and the fact that the metrical and verse – forms that Keble more often adopts – seem to lend themselves for use in hymns and

39 HA&M, (Supplement Edition), 168.

93 ballads. B. M. Lott, who has done much work on the technical data of Keble’s poems, maintains that:

On the one hand the most common metrical and stanzaic forms in The Christian Year are long meter and long meter doubled, and ballad or common meter, that is, forms best known through their use in hymns and ballads. On the other hand, these frequent forms, accounting for forty-one, or slightly over a third of the poems in the collection, are more than balanced by thirty eight other, different stanzaic patterns in the remaining two-thirds of the poems, for a final total of forty-two stanzaic patterns among the 109 poems in the collection. The thirty-eight other stanzaic forms do not derive from the hymn tradition, nor are they suitable for adaptation as hymns, being usually too complicated for such use.

Some of Keble’s forms come from album verse popular in the period, that is, verse in miscellaneous literary collections, usually annuals (The Keepsake is a well known example) designed especially for female readers. Other of Keble’s forms are evidently his own creation. The result in any case is an abundance of stanzaic variety and experimentation, yet its effect is not haphazard because it is cemented by intermixture with hymn and ballad forms and by the recurrence of the conventional metrical feet.40

Lott makes a further point that ‘Keble is the stanzaic experimenter of the age until the appearance of Christina Rossetti.’41 For John Keble, however, church music as he knew it related only to the metrical versions of psalmody prescribed by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins (Old

Version) and later Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady (New Version) even though all the time, hymns, whether classed as ‘Evangelical’ or of ‘High Church orientation’ were undoubtedly taking over from psalm-singing. However, what is particularly interesting is ’s collection of

Hymns for all the Festivals of the Year published in 1721. Tennyson, in showing how some of the earlier compositions from Bishop Ken succeeded in becoming the familiar hymns that congregations came to know and love within their regular worship and complementing the BCP comments as follows:

Ken (Bishop) was the author of the ‚Morning Hymn‛ and the ‚Evening Hymn‛ two of the best known of all English hymns and frequently cited as progenitors of Keble’s ‚Morning‛ and ‚Evening ‚ hymn from The Christian Year. Ken’s two hymns were first printed in his Manual of Prayers for the Use of Scholars at Winchester College (1695) and they were later widely reprinted. The ‚Morning Hymn concludes with the Doxology (‚Praise God from whom all blessings flow‛), which has become perhaps the most widely sung of verses in all English hymnody. Although the

40 Lott, B. M., The Poetry of John Keble with special reference to The Christian Year and his contributions to ‚Lyra Apostolica‛, (diss., London University, 1960), 210, in Tennyson, G.B., 1981,108. 41 Ibid., 109.

94 specific texts of Ken’s two hymns have no particular resemblance to Keble’s ‚Morning‛ and ‚Evening‛ poems, they offer broad parallels in that they complement the order of worship in the BCP.42

John Keble’s first poem in The Christian Year entitled ‘Morning’ which begins:

Hues of the rich unfolding morn, That, e’er the glorious sun be born, By some soft touch invisible Around his path are taught to swell, from which verses the well known hymn, ‘New every morning is the love’ has been taken and fitted to the tune MELCOMBE by Samuel Webbe, uses only selected verses chosen by the editors i.e. verses 6-9 and 14 because they possess hymn- like qualities. The hymn ends with the prayerful words,

Only O Lord, in Thy dear love Fit us for perfect rest above; And help us, this and every day, To live more nearly as we pray.43

His poem ‘Evening’ (‘Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear’) based upon the New Testament passage from Luke Chapter 24: verse 29, however, has prayer requests within the framework of fourteen verses and again has the familiar verses which come from HA&M and sung to either

Herbert Oakeley’s tune, ABENDS’, to Dykes’ tune KEBLE or to Peter Ritter’s HURSLEY. A selection of the verses read as follows:

Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear, It is not night if Thou be near: O may no earth-born cloud arise To hide Thee from Thy servant’s eyes.

Watch by the sick; enrich the poor With blessings from Thy boundless store; Be every mourner’s sleep to-night Like infant slumbers, pure and light.

Come near and bless us when we wake, Ere through the world our way we take; Till in the ocean of Thy love We lose ourselves in Heaven above’.44

42 Tennyson, Appendix B., 220. 43 Webbe, S., HA&M,(Revised Edition),4.

95

What is interesting in one verse of Keble’s ‘Evening’ with its reference to illness, fever, indeed to the short life-span, is a very real awareness that in nineteenth century, in industrial

England, people, and especially children, were regularly ill, and suffered from poor working conditions, atmospheres of smoke, fumes and dust from factories often for long hours. Hence

Keble’s poetic verses would often have a ‘medical touch’ about them. If Keble knew the life and work of Ken then he would also probably have known the poetry of the high churchman, John

Byrom who wrote poems in keeping with the cycle of the Church’s year and the Olney Hymns

(1779) which contain poems on the Church’s major festivals.

It would seem then that, as poems and hymns were being written around the festivals and feast days of the Church of England almost in the context of a ‘liturgical cycle’, The Christian Year was a seminal publication for Tractarians, though at the same time it is important to acknowledge that Heber’s simultaneous publication of original hymns from several sources actually matched the seasons of the Church’s liturgical year. Tennyson nevertheless sums up Keble’s role when he says:

Even if John Keble were totally unfamiliar with all of the preceding work in this vein, the existence of such work points to an undeniable interest in linking verse and sequence of Christian worship, especially as ordered by the Prayer Book<..

But it is Keble’s volume that accounts for the flood of Victorian collections and anthologies based upon the ecclesiastical year, and for the dominant organisational pattern of all English language hymnals for the mid-nineteenth century to our own day. This is an influence that has gone largely unremarked, as has so much of Keble’s work, but it has had wider repercussions in the actual religious life of the Christian community than even the far more celebrated and studied influence of Newman.’45

Before we look at some original poems adapted to hymn tunes for the use of congregational worship, it is important to observe the way poetic and musical forms were changing and indeed more accommodating in the nineteenth century for the ordinary worshipper each Sunday in his place of worship. In this regard it is interesting to observe not only how other ‘Christian persuasions and Dissenting groups’ composed and structured their hymnody often of a more lively

44 Ibid., 24. 45 Tennyson, 223.

96 nature than the Church of England, but the way hymn-writing as an art form harnessed the best as well as the most sensitive religious as well as poetical ideas and inspiration from the Romantic poets of the period.

Watson, to whom reference has already been made, maintains that in fact Montgomery and

Heber, in their different ways, actually turned hymn-writing for an Evangelical and Dissenting minority to an art which had something in common with the hopes and aspirations of other

Romantic period poets, with Christian experience and inner response. Their poetry included sacred poems as well as hymns, and they brought the two genres closer together the process being completed by Keble in 1827. Keble’s work, as Newman said, ‘did that for the Church of England which none but a poet could do: he made it poetical’.

Whilst it cannot be said that Keble made hymnody either respectable or popular, the setting of his poems as hymns did this. The poetic content of his poetry in The Christian Year, it may be argued, helped to draw hymnody away from what might be termed subjective

Evangelicalism into a more central Christian experience in which the body of the Church itself stood as a central principal instead of ‘personal salvation’.46

Watson sees the ‘poeticizing of religion’ or ‘making religion beautiful’ as having a parallel with the Gothic revival which also was taking place where churches were being either rebuilt or restored to their former glory and asserts:

The view of the high and sacramental nature of poetry was fundamental to the development of hymnody. During the nineteenth century it became no longer an expression of enthusiasm or of salvation, but part of a process of ‘poeticizing religion, making religion beautiful. It had something in common with church restoration, which (however unfortunate its results) began in a desire to make the place of worship more expressive of the holiness that should be found there. It is no accident that a hymn such as 'O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness' should have been written during the nineteenth century: the concept is one which Keble would have understood. 47

46 Watson, J. R., 326-7. 47 Ibid., 328.

97 Looking at the Zeitgeist, there is no doubt that Keble saw the Church of England and the

BCP as literally as a means as well as the medium to challenge as well as to offer a spiritual alternative to bring about healing in society and in much of the thought and morality of the times.

These were indeed ‘times of much leisure and unbounded curiosity when excitement of every kind is sought after with a morbid eagerness’, as he says in the ‘Advertisement’ to The

Christian Year. Yet Keble hoped, as has been indicated earlier, that his poems in The Christian Year would, as a spiritual palliative, exhibit ‘that soothing tendency’ which the Prayer Book had to offer.48

48 Ibid., 328.

98

Chapter Three

The Clarion Voice of Tractarian Poets, their interpretation, insights and inspiration on some contemporary issues.

Poems contain ideas. In turn, housed by long tenure in most words, ideas have consequences for poetry<..Every poem has been influenced by the ideas of the poet and by preconceptions of his time<.the English poets of the period 1789-1832, we say wrote in a climate of revolution, reaction and reform. Born into such a climate, a poet could enlist or defy, but he could not ignore, for ‚not choosing is choosing‛, and withdrawal was reaction. Carl Woodridge

[Politics in English Romantic Poetry (Oxford University Press), 1970, 1.]

3.1 Introduction

Chapters One and Two, as they have been presented, give a picture of

Victorian England in the midst of a rather turbulent, murky, noisy industrial landscape which for the poet particularly echoed rhyme and meaning in what Blake described as those ‘dark satanic mills’. The emergence of the Tractarian or Oxford revival movement took place against the backdrop of a great deal of reform, whether to reduce the number of bishoprics in the , the (first) Reform Act of

1832, reform of the universities, and the need for ecclesiastical reform (as lampooned by Trollope in The Warden and Barchester Towers), and the movement’s zeal for change resulted in the dissemination of Church of

England principles through Tracts for the Times and spearheaded by

Newman, Pusey and Froude. Reference has been made already to the

99 essential substance of the Tracts which, whilst touching on theological and ecclesiastical subjects (such as the Church’s Apostolicity, its character and authority as a divinely established organism, its sacramental responsibility through Baptism and Holy Communion as well its pastoral agenda), set out first and foremost to recover the nation in Victorian England from political turmoil, vindictiveness and a loss of Christian vision; and this it did in what appeared to be a recovery of wholesome Christian principles, marked by holiness of life, reverence for the sacraments, the rediscovery of mystery in the liturgy and order in the conduct of worship: in other words a recovery of what was deemed to be a ‘blue print’ of the ancient church of apostolic times. If in the early pages of the thesis, the important place of the sacraments, the building and rebuilding of churches in the Gothic style was itemised, other developments were no less significant such as the place of the nave within the sanctum of the Church, friendly links that existed between Evangelicals as well as Tractarians, a revival of religious orders and communities whose task was in the area of pastoral care. The spotlight was also focused on the new musical ideas which would serve as models for the later musical - religious genre. Whilst there was room for debate within the medium of the regular publication of The Parish Choir,

Neale, Caswall and others spared no time or effort in seeking to recover the lost musical and liturgical treasures of antiquity, whether in Latin or

Greek from monasteries. Also encouraging was the fact that in many

100 parishes of the land, gifted teachers such as Hullah and the Helmore brothers were busy teaching people both to read as well as to sing church music.

The substance of the two earlier chapters reviewed the way in which the BCP and Keble’s devotional and poetical aid, The Christian Year, complemented each other after much grafting and recasting of material.

Biblical readings, collects and prayers certainly fitted neatly into the

Church’s calendrical year coupled with the fact that congregational participation was now possible in a church service to a greater degree because the church’s rubrics were simplified, the number of services reduced, and, in making English translations of the Latin liturgy available, ordinary people could now understand and could participate in what was being enacted, voiced and offered to God. Moreover, with the translation and use of Latin hymns from the Roman Breviary, which were both

Catholic and Evangelical, these were now being inserted either before the service, after the Third Collect, or at the end of the service, and this meant that the musical dimension was slowly finding its way into the very structure of church worship.

Certainly White’s comments, stressing the fact that the Church’s liturgy is the story of the ways in which complex social cultural forces have shaped the ritual responses to an experience of God in Christ, matched Love’s comments that the theology of the Church is in fact

101 ‘encounter’, infiltrated by music set in earlier times, whose purpose in

Church worship is to nourish as well as to unify. While the idea that poetry was ‘metrical imaginative verse’ (the idea that a new concept of literature attributed aesthetic value to certain writings over and above their contents), there was no doubt that, for Tractarians, harnessing the ingredients of the Romantic heritage, concerned with the nature of artistic creativity, was a way by which the poet could restore the majesty and mystery of the eternal God. Keble adhered to the essential precept that a poem was a frame or scaffold that could be used to release the people’s religious feelings. The manner and language of poetry had a special effect on its readers. It could act as a panacea, relieving humanity from pain without exposing such feelings to negative influence. Poetry could also act as parable which could, by degrees, unveil feelings as well as teaching a person to express those feelings in a reserved and coded manner (concepts which lay at the heart of Tracts 80 and 87 on the subject of ‘Reserve’).

Moreover, Keble believed, in the same ways as many other Romantic poets of his day, that the expression of religion through poetry offered an alternative to current philosophical trends in which post-Enlightenment reason and doubt lay at the forefront of people’s minds. Indeed, recent scholarship has emphasised just how compelling the poetics of

Tractarianism was as a model of expression in more than the context of religious conviction and belief, particularly in the way its poetical manner

102 of communication was able to reach out and touch other aspects of

Victorian life.1

3.2 A Poetical interpretation of Political events - The Anglican

Church and ‘’.

The political situation in Britain, highlighted by the ‘suppression’ of the

Irish bishoprics, was, for Keble, like laying hands on the ‘Ark of the

Covenant’ of Old Testament times2, and because the ‘Church’ was a divinely ordained institution directly linked to the time of the Apostles and in no way to be governed or dictated to by secular politics, forced his hand to sound the alarm on ‘National Apostasy’ in the famous ‘Assize

Sermon’ in St Mary’s Church, Oxford, before H. M. Judges of Assize on 14

July 1833.

No small wonder then that for Keble, Newman and Froude, these were anxious days. Against political interference, the Reform Bill, as well as attendant social and economic misery and injustice with also a deep sense that the Anglican Church had failed in her task, it was a women poet, Cecil Frances Alexander, wife of William Alexander (bishop of Derry in 1867 and Archbishop of Armagh in 1869), who put pen to paper and,

1 See Mason, E., ‘Tractarian Poetry: An Introduction’, Victorian Poetry 44.1 (2006), 6. 2 Carpenter, S. C., Church and People, 1789-1889, London, (S.P.C.K., The Macmillan Co., 1933), 97.

103 keen to defend the Christian faith and church establishment, wrote her poetic commentary with the words:

Look down, O Lord of heaven, on our desolation! Fallen, fallen, fallen is now our Country’s crown, Dimly dawns the New Year on a churchless nation, Ammon and Amalek tread our borders down.3

Newman, who was ill and accompanied by Froude (who developed tuberculosis), set sail for the Mediterranean in 1832 conscious of all the troubles and political, religious and social trauma at home, and there was a sense in which both Tractarian leaders longed for some way of healing and national reconciliation. Froude returned to England earlier, but Newman travelled on and alone to Sicily where again illness dogged his steps with blistered feet, lack of sleep, poor food and, finally, Sicilian fever. It was on his way home, convalescing, first at Palmero, before setting sail for

England and still in a state of conflict, that he first wrote the words which later were to come true for him when he left the Church of England to become a Roman catholic:

Oh, that thy creed were sound! For thou dost soothe the heart, Thou Church of Rome.

There on a foreign shore The homesick solitary finds a friend. Thoughts prisoned long for lack of speech, outpour Their tears; and doubts in resignation end. I almost fainted from the long delay That tangles me within this languid bay.4

3 Wallace, V., Mrs Alexander:A Life of the Hymnwriter, (The Lilliput Press: Dublin, 1995),153.

104

Carpenter also comments on the state of the Church when the state decided to usurp its rights over what essentially was a Divine Institution:

‘The Church of England has fallen low, and will probably be worse before it is better; but let the Whigs do their worst, they cannot sink us so deep as these people have allowed themselves to fall, while retaining all the superficials of a religious country.’5 As is well known, while Newman made his way home to England, a lonely journey compounded by unusual weather conditions and persistent fog between the straits of Corsica and

Sardinia, he wrote the hymn ‘Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom’, published in the British Magazine, March 1834 and later in Lyra

Apostolica, 1836 (No. 25):

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead Thou me on. Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou Shouldst lead me on; I loved to choose and see my path; but now Lead thou me on. I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still

4 Newman, J., cited in Bailey, A.E., The Gospel in Hymns, (Charles Scribner & Sons), New York, 1950, 194. 5 Carpenter, 124.

105 Wilt lead me on, O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till The night is gone, And with the morn those angel faces smile, Which I have loved long since, and lost a while.

At Sea June 16th 1833.6

These verses, which were never intended to be sung, and were to be altered many times with even a verse added by Edward Bickersteth, were to become immensely popular with the Victorians. Adding to the popularity of Newman’s inspired verse, Bradley comments on Keble’s poetry in the same way:

By the end of the nineteenth century more than a hundred of John Keble’s verses were to be found in hymn-books. The great majority of them came from The Christian Year, which as we have seen was only published after much soul searching by the author. Keble himself never gave his own reaction to the huge popularity of the hymns made out of the verses in his 1827 collection such as ‘New every morning is the love’ and ‘Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear’, although in later years he could bear no reference to the book in his presence. He collaborated with Newman in 1836 to produce a book of verses, Lyra Apostolica which, while again predominantly intended for private use, became, in the words of Henry Scott Holland, ‘the song book of English Catholicity, in its most militant and defiant mood’. Keble also published a metrical version of the psalms in 1839 and wrote some verses specifically for congregational singing including, ‘Lord, in thy name thy servants plead’ for the 1857 Salisbury Hymn Book.7

Like Mrs Alexander, also used his gifts as a poet commentating on the sad state of the Church due not only to political interference but theological troubles within:

6 HA&M, (First Edition), 342. 7 Bradley, I., 105-106.

106 Lord of our life, and God of our salvation, Star of our night, and hope of every nation, Hear and receive thy Church’s supplication, Lord God Almighty.

See round thine ark the hungry billows curling; See how thy foes their banners are unfurling; Lord, while their darts envenomed they are hurling, Thou canst preserve us.

Lord. thou canst help when earthly armour faileth, Lord thou canst save when deadly sin assaileth; Lord, o’er thy Church nor death nor hell prevaileth: Grant us thy peace, Lord.

Grant us thy help till foes are backward driven, Grant them thy truth, that they may be forgiven, Grant peace on earth, and after we have striven, Peace in thy heaven.8

3.3 A Poetical interpretation of the issue of the Authority of the

Church,its Sacraments and the ‘inspiration’ of the Bible against

‘liberalism’.

There is no doubt that the Tractarian leaders, committed to the cause of revival and a recovery of all that was precious to the Church, whether it was her ‘authority as a divine institution under God’, her ‘sacramental dimension’, her pursuit of ‘holiness’, her ‘pastoral care’ and sound doctrinal teaching, as well as her sense of ‘’ from the early days of the apostles, were as Carpenter says: orthodox to the finger tips, profoundly, elaborately and completely orthodox, over-orthodox, fighting desperately on the outskirts of the

8 HA&M. (Appendix to the First Edition), 253.

107 battlefield in last ditches that could not be defended and had no strategic value but propose to Keble anything that may seem to disparage the honour due to the Lamb of God, and see his painful flush and hear his stern rebuke! In this, where all were faithful, Pusey was the standard bearer. His self- accusations, from 1839, when his wife died, to 1882, when he died himself, were often morbid; the iron strictness of his discipline can hardly be read of without discomfort. But was there ever anything more wholly forgetting, more utterly adoring, than Pusey’s devotion to our Lord? It was no barren and external set of propositions. It was their life, their breath, their dearest thing. It came to them from our Lord Himself. They were profoundly conscious that it had reached them from a divine source, and that the church in which it had reached them must for that reason be part of the very Church of God.9

Echoed in Pusey’s poetry no doubt was the need to defend the

Church from heresies within her fold, as in the case of the Gorham judgement of 1850 which is well known. This concerned the appeal of C.

G. Gorham, clergyman in the Church of England, to the Judicial

Committee of the Privy Council, when the bishop of Exeter refused to institute him to his living on the grounds of his refusal to accept the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. When the Privy Council upheld

Gorham’s appeal, the Tractarians were naturally shocked. Again

Carpenter comments on the events after the decision was made to appoint

Gorham to be Vicar of Bamford Speke: ‘Prompted by Pusey in the matter of history and theology, but using a vigour of style which was all his own, he published a solemn appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which concluded as follows:

9 Carpenter, 138-139.

108 I have to protest and I do solemnly protest before the Church of England, before the holy Catholic Church, before Him Who is its Divine Head, against you giving mission to exercise cure of souls, within my diocese, to a clergyman who proclaims himself to hold the heresies which Mr Gorham holds. I protest that anyone who gives mission to him till he retract, is a favourer and supporter of those heresies. I protest in conclusion, that I cannot, without sin – and, by God’s grace, I will not – hold communion with him, be he who he may, who shall so abuse the high commission which he bears.’10

As well as publishing Tracts on the subject of ‘’ (No.18), and the sacrament of ‘Holy Baptism’ (Nos.67-69), Pusey, in his teaching from a

Tractarian point of view, not only stressed the ‘Real Presence of Christ’11 within the Holy Eucharist but preached a ‘sacramental’ sermon entitled

The Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent; this was subsequently condemned by the Vice-Chancellor and six theologians with a suspension from University preaching for two years. If within the order of the sacramental life of the Church of England, Baptism is the indicator of a believer’s initiation into the faith at the font, then nourishment of that

Christian life takes place at the altar through the agency of the Eucharist or

Holy Communion, Welch affirms as ‘a sign of the setting up of Christ’s kingdom on earth, testifying that by a completed sacrifice, the race, constituted and redeemed by Christ, has once and for all been brought into a state of acceptance and union with God’12

10 Ibid.,199. 11 Carpenter, 139 & 154 12 Welch , C., Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century, Volume I., (1799-1870), Yale University Press, 1972), 252.

109 Among the hymns in HA&M, which express the theme of Holy

Communion and Christ’s risen presence within the sacrament of Bread and Wine is, ‘Now my tongue the mystery telling of the glorious Body sing’, written by Thomas Aquinas and translated by Neale and Caswall, two earnest Tractarians.

Verses in this Holy Communion hymn in perspective, look back to our Lord’s administration of the sacrament at the , i.e. the

Passover Meal, whilst also expressing an awareness of His presence at the centre of the Christian community renewing His promise and both proclaiming and sealing it in the ‘now’ at every celebration of the

Eucharist:

That last night, at supper lying ‘Mid the Twelve, his chosen band, Jesus with the Law complying Keeps the feast its rites demand; Then, more precious food supplying, Gives himself with his own hand.

Therefore we, before him bending, This great Sacrament revere: Types and shadows have their ending, For the newer rite is here; Faith, our outward sense befriending, Makes our inward vision clear.13

If the Gorham Judgement of 1850 prompted the Tractarian poets’ inspiration, so did the deeply controversial ‘Colenso issue’ in South Africa which this time drew attention not to the sacraments but to the inspiration

13 HA&M, (First Edition) 203.

110 of Scripture. John Colenso, Bishop of Natal, was deposed from his position by the Archbishop of Capetown because he had challenged the authorship of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament and dared to question eternal punishment. John Colenso’s appeal was upheld by the

Judicial Committee and yet another bishop was allowed to keep his position even though each held more liberal views. If Baker, who later was to become Chairman of the Committee for HA&M, felt the need to write the words:

Lord Thy word abideth And our footsteps guideth; Who its truth believeth Light and joy receiveth,14 in order to defend Biblical infallibility against the rising tide of the liberal theologians, it was Plumptre, Dean of Wells, a select preacher at Oxford and a member of the Old Testament Company of Revisers of the Bible (1864-

1874), who had no hesitation in proclaiming emphatically in the last line of each of the six verses of his hymn entitled, ‘Thy hand , O God, has guided

Thy flock, from age to age’, the words, ‘One Church, one faith, one Lord’.15

Equally emphatic was the poet Samuel John Stone’s hymn entitled, ‘The

Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord’, composed in 1866 and published at the same time as his Lyra Fidlium, with the following lines which with reference to the Church read,

14 HA&M 210. 15 HA&M (Revised), 256

111 She is his new creation By water and the word: From heaven he came and sought her To be his holy Bride; With his own Blood he bought her And for her life he died.16

Watson makes the comment that ‘at the same time, as hymns began to be built into the worship of the Church, so the Church became built into the language of hymnody: ‘Lord, her watch Thy Church is keeping; When shall earth Thy rule obey?’ The Church keeps the watch, waiting for the morning, while the indifferent world goes on its way. Because this was seen as so valuable a mission, it was deeply sensitive to controversy and division:

Though with a scornful wonder Men see her sore opprest, By schisms rent asunder, By heresies distrest,

Yet saints their watch are keeping, Their cry goes up, ‘How long?’ And soon the night of weeping Shall be the morn of song.

Mid toil and tribulation, And tumult of her war, She waits the consummation Of peace for evermore.’17

The seven verses of ‘We love thy place, O God’ by William Bullock,

(1798-1874), make up a hymn written for the consecration of a missionary

16 HA&M, 320. 17 Watson, 393.

112 chapel he built at Trinity Bay in Newfoundland in 1827. It was recast by the Baker and published in the first edition of HA&M. The verses of this hymn to Bishop Jenner’s tune, ‘QUAM DILECTA’, have always been popular, partly because members of the congregation singing it identify the various places in the church, the preaching and singing which for them offered special spiritual inspiration throughout their lives. The verses identify the sacred font, the altar, prayer, the word of life and singing, all of which help in preparing the pilgrim on earth for life in heaven as is evident in verses three, four and five below:

We love the sacred font; For there the holy Dove To pour is ever wont His blessing from above.

We love thine altar Lord; O what on earth so dear? For there in faith adored, We find thy presence near.

We love the word of life, The word that tells of peace, of comfort in the strife, And joys that never cease.18

The theme of ‘the Church’ then seems to represent the ‘centre or focal point’ on earth acting as it were ‘a bridge’ between earth and heaven.

This sense of closeness between the Church on earth and heaven is also

‘rooted in the Trinity’ as theologically articulated in the hymn, ‘Three in

18 HA&M 164

113 One and One in Three’ by Gilbert Rorison, (1821-1869). In the last verse of this hymn composed for HA&M (1861) we read of the Church’s praise and veneration of the Holy Trinity in worship:

Three in One and One in Three, Dimly here we worship Thee; With the saints hereafter we Hope to bear the palm.19

3.4 Hymn-Poetry recovered from Ancient and Medieval sources and

translated by John Chandler, Josiah Conder, Edward Caswall and

John Mason Neale.

As will be observed later when looking at the first edition of HA&

M, and subsequent editions, one fact that stands out from a brief survey of all the material from poets and musicians sympathetic to the Tractarian

Movement was the fact that, among the liturgical, poetic and musical treasures that came from ancient sources, some 46% of the material was made up of translations from Rome, Greece, Paris and Germany. The need to translate the theological, sacramental and biblical treasures of the early church into the English language, its rhyme and metre would be important for congregations again to taste the spiritual aura of antiquity. Whilst not discounting for one moment some of the women translators of German

19 HA& M 137.

114 texts such as Catherine Winkworth, whose Chorale Book for England and

Christian Singers of Germany are reasonably well known, Frances Cox with

Sacred Hymns from the German, and Catherine Dunn, who published Hymns from the German in 1857, it is in the persons of Chandler, Caswall and

Neale where one will find translations from antiquity locked up in monasteries in Europe and beyond.

Chandler (1806-1876) received his academic education from Corpus

Christi College, Oxford, and was ordained in 1831 succeeding his father as

Vicar of Witley in Surrey in 1837. He has handed down to the Church some eighty translations from the Paris Breviary, hymns dating from the

Reformation to the present and inserted into the prayer books. Chandler, a

Latin scholar was one of the first Tractarians to remedy the deficiency, as pointed out by Newman, of Latin hymnody within the Anglican . In this, he risked the opprobrium of the Evangelicals who detected in the

Latin verse a whiff of Papal infiltration (even though Latin had remained common parlance in the academic environments of both Oxford and

Cambridge) on account of the quality of the material contained in the poetry. What Chandler did was to unearth and make public a different kind of hymn which, from antiquity (and thereby stressed an intrinsic

Romantic desire for historicism), brought to contemporary audiences a refreshing theological outlook in unfamiliar and rich language. Out of his book entitled The Hymns of the Primitive Church, Now First Collected,

115 Translated and Arranged (1837), and later in 1841 his Hymns of the Church, mostly primitive, Collected, Translated, and Arranged for Public use, one recalls the Evening hymn:

As now the sun’s declining rays At eventide descend, So life’s brief day is sinking down To its appointed end.20

There is also the well known Advent hymn (Instantis adventum Dei):

The advent of our King Our prayers must now employ, And we must hymns of welcome sing In strains of holy joy.21

Also included in the Paris Breviary for Mattins in Advent is the popular hymn:

On Jordan’s bank the Baptist cry Announces that the Lord is nigh; Awake and hearken, for he brings Glad tidings of the King of Kings,22 used for Lauds on Sundays and Ferias in Advent. If Chandler’s translation of J. B. de Santeuil’s hymn entitled ‘The heavenly Child in stature grows’23 fits into the Church’s calendrical year for the season of Epiphany, the seventh- or eighth-century hymn, ‘Jesu, our hope, our hearts desire’,24 used

20 By Charles Coffin (1676-1749), Rector of the University of Paris, published among a collection of a hundred Latin hymns incorporated into the Paris Breviary (see HA&M Revised, No. 29). 21 Ibid., 48. 22 Ibid., 50. 23 Ibid., 78. 24 Ibid., 146.

116 for Compline, also fits well into the Church’s season of Ascension-tide. One remaining epic translation from the pen of Chandler is ‘Christ is our

Corner-Stone’ which reads:

Christ is our Corner-stone, On him alone we build; With his true saints alone The courts of heaven are filled: On his great love Our hopes we place Of present grace And joys above.25

Although the doxology is omitted and there are minor alterations, nevertheless the translation of this hymn (Angularis fundamentum), one of testimony and witness, majestic and positive in its contour, is most effectively wedded to S. S Wesley’s tune HAREWOOD (in Hymns of the

Primitive Church, 1837).

In the poetic contribution of Josiah Conder (1789-1855), and his hymn book, The Congregational Hymn Book: A Supplement to Dr Watts’s Psalms and

Hymns (1836), which was to provide new and varied material with the accent placed more on worship, and, moreover, represented that side of hymnody which has been noted as a fundamental feature of the Romantic-period, prompted the statement by the Committee in the ‘Preface’ to the hymn book:

That a great deficiency of hymns of praise and adoration characterizes most of our modern Collections, and that our psalmody is in some danger of being

25 Ibid., 243.

117 to much diverted from its primary purpose, by the introduction of so large a proportion of metrical compositions of a descriptive, sentimental, or didactic character, - instructive and edifying in themselves, but not in the form or spirit of with prayer or praise. [pp iii-iv.]

Josiah Conder, born in Falcon Street, London, was the son of a London bookseller, whom he was able to assist from the age of 15 years. As well as being the author of several prose works, he not only contributed three hymns to Dr.Collyer’s collection but in 1836 when he edited The Congregational Hymn

Book: A Supplement to Dr Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, referred to above, provided a further fifty-six of his own hymn–compositions. Conder not only demonstrated a fine ecumenical spirit but a hope for a kind of universal harmony in which all denominations could join. The quotation from the

‘Preface’ to The Congregational Hymn Book (p. x) reads:

The productions of Bishops Ken and Heber, of Wesley and Toplady, of Doddridge and Hart, Cowper and Newton, Fawcett and Beddome – Episcopal clergymen, Moravians, Wesleyan Methodists, Independents and – all harmoniously combining in this metrical service – prove that ‘by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, and that there actually exists throughout that body ‘a Communion of Saints’. Conder was one of the first anthologists to use Charles Wesley but again his readiness to appropriate the work of other denominations is significant evidence of the perceptible widening of the stream of hymnody. Of the hymn poetry written by Josiah Conder one recalls:

The Lord is King! lift up thy voice, O earth, and all ye heavens, rejoice; From world to world the joy shall ring, The Lord omnipotent is King.

[The Star in the East, with other Poems, 1824, p. 50]

118 and:

Bread of heaven on thee we feed, For thy flesh is meat indeed; Ever may our souls be fed With this the true and living Bread; Day by day with strength supplied Through the life of him who died.

[Star of the East, 1824, p. 57]

After his death, his poems and all his hymns, already completely revised by him before his death, were published under the title of Hymns of

Praise in 1846.

No less important is the Anglican priest and hymn-translator

Edward Caswall (1814-1878), deeply involved in the Tractarian Movement, but later to be admitted into the Roman Catholic Church. Like many other

Tractarians, Caswall was the son of a Anglican Vicar, the Robert Clarke

Caswall, Vicar of Yately, Hampshire, and received his education from

Brasenose College, Oxford. When his wife died from cholera in 1849,

Caswall decided to enter the Oratory in Edgbaston, Birmingham, a centre set up by John Newman and it was from here that he was ordained into the Roman Catholic Church. Like Chandler, we are indebted to the literary prodigiousness of his two hundred or so translations of Latin hymns.

These were published in 1848 in Lyra Catholica, containing the Hymns and

Vespers, Compline and Benediction, with those in the Office of the Blessed Virgin and in the Missal. That Caswall remained active as an author of poetry

119 throughout his life is evidenced by the publication of The Masque of Mary and other Poems in 1858 and a May Pageant, and other Poems in 1865, and posthumously in 1908, an edition of Hymns and Poems, original and translated by Edward Caswall of the Oratory, with a Biographical Preface by

Edward Bellasis, Lancaster Herald (Burns and Oates), was published.

Bailey, in summing up the character of Edward Caswall, says that he was ‘not only beautiful but self- effacing in his clerical duties and ministrations to the unfortunate and his choice of hymn translations also reflecting a depth and tenderness of an offshoot of his nature just as the quality of his literary work shows poetic sensitiveness’.26 Watson, in giving his appraisal of Caswall’s poetic contribution in the hymn ‘When morning gilds the skies’, maintains: ‘There is no mistaking the buoyant energy with which the singer is conducted to the joyful third line. In hymns such as this, Caswall’s voice seems indeed fresh, welling up from some inner happiness, and charged with delight’.27 It is from these publications that hymn translations such as the evening hymn

The sun is sinking fast The daylight dies; Let love awake, and pay Her evening sacrifice’;28 and the Advent hymn translation,

26 Bailey, A. E., 198. 27 Watson, 368. 28 HA & M (Revised), 30.

120 ‘Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding; ‚Christ is nigh‛, it seems to say; ‚Cast away the dreams of darkness, O ye children of the day!‛29

Following the Church’s calendrical year the Epiphany hymn translation from Spanish poet Prudentius is still popular in some churches and reads:

Earth has many a noble city; Bethlehem, thou dost all excel: Out of thee the Lord from heaven Came to rule his Israel’,30

Another of Caswall’s hymn translations centres on Passion-tide for the Office of the Sacred Heart in a Roman Breviary and printed in Lisbon,

1786 and reads:

All ye who seek for sure relief In trouble and distress, Whatever sorrow vex the mind, Or guilt the soul oppress.31

One Passion-tide hymn used regularly at the Eucharist is a hymn attributed to St. Alfonso Liguori and translated by Caswall in his Hymns for the Use of Birmingham Oratory, of 1857:

Glory be to Jesus, Who, in bitter pains, Poured for me the life-blood From his sacred veins.32

29 Ibid., 47. 30 Ibid., 76. 31 Ibid., 104. 32 Ibid., 107.

121 The popular hymn already referred to, from an anonymous German source but found in Sebastian Portner’s Katholisches Gesanbuch, 1828, for use in the Diocese of Wurzburg is:

When morning gilds the skies, My heart awaking cries, May Jesus Christ be praised: Alike at work and prayer To Jesus I repair; May Jesus Christ be praised’.33

Whilst both Caswall and Neale had a share in the translation of the Holy

Communion hymn, ‘Now, my tongue, the mystery telling, Of the glorious

Body sing’ ( Pange, lingua, gloriosi mysterium)34 by Thomas Aquinas (1227-

1274) for the office of Corpus Christi in 1263, Caswall’s translation of Part

One, Two and Three of Jesu dulcis memoria.

Jesu! The very thought of thee; With sweetness fills my breast; But sweeter far thy face to see, And in thy presence rest.35 found in his Lyra Catholica,1849 and attributed to St Bernard. A final hymn translation for Passion-tide, from a Latin text in Caswall’s Lyra Catholica,

1849 which has a history reaching back to Coeleste Palmetum, Cologne,

1669, is:

My God, I love thee; not because I hope for heaven thereby, Nor yet because who love thee not

33 Ibid., 223. 34 Ibid., 383. 35 Ibid., 189.

122 Are lost eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus thou didst me Upon the cross embrace; For me didst bear the nails and spear, And manifold disgrace.36

If John Chandler was keen to unearth some 80 of the hymns from the Paris Breviary and Edward Caswall, (who had converted to Roman

Catholicism), some 200 Latin hymns whilst he resided at the Birmingham

Oratory, (set up by Newman), it was John Mason Neale who, besides translating Latin hymns, gave to the Church hymn texts from the Eastern

Church. As is well known, his translation work took place at Sackville

College, East Grinstead, 1846.

3.5 John Mason Neale

‘Safe home, safe home to port! Rent cordage, shatter’d deck, Torn sails, provisions short, And only a wreck: But oh! The joy upon the shore To tell our voyage- perils o’er’. J. M. Neale

[Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1862.]

The above verse from this hymn typifies so completely the political, historical, religious and theological battles, misconceptions and struggles often at the risk of ill health, isolation and rebuke, that some of the

36 Ibid., 106.

123 Tractarians had to suffer for their belief and the vision of a re- ordered, authoritative recovery of Christ’s Church which they believed was handed down to them from the Apostles and early Church Fathers. It was Neale

(1818-1866), prince among hymn poets and translators who, along with

Benjamin Webbe (1819-1885), founded the Cambridge Camden Society and later The Ecclesiologist, in an effort to press forward the principles of the Tractarian Movement by rediscovering, unearthing and translating hymns from Latin and Greek and also making available ancient hymns from the Eastern Church.

After he was ordained in 1842, Neale, who suffered from recurrent illness, had to travel to Madeira for three years to recover; but, on his return, he was appointed warden of Sackville College, East Grinstead, where he founded the Sisterhood of St. Margaret for the education of girls and the care of the sick. Here he embarked upon his distinguished and enduring literary work of hymn-writing and translating. That Neale was a deeply studious individual, absorbed by the scrutiny of ancient texts, is encapsulated by A. E. Bailey, who noted that much of his inspiration, as a genuine poet, was derived from the almost monastic existence at Sackville

College assisted by relief from ecclesiastical pressures through the sympathetic agency of the Bishop of Chichester:

Neale took refuge in his study, surrounded himself with curious manuscripts of ancient liturgies, treatises on ecclesiology and architecture, books in every European language, Coptic and Syriac dictionaries, books

124 on folk lore, hymnology, history and theology. The room was crammed to every nook and corner – as it still is. The result was History of Alexandria, History of the Eastern Church, a book for children, Translations of Medieval Hymns and Sequences, Hymni Ecclesiae, History of Antioch – not to mention all. And he won the Setonian Prize for Poetry at the University ten years in succession.37

In consequence, from Neale’s Medieval Hymns and Sequences of 1851, followed by part one of the Hymnal Noted (the second part appearing in

1854) and later the translations from Hymns of the Eastern Church from the original Greek of 1862, Tractarian parish churches were able to use some

105 hymns and melodies in the original language from sources that historically came from before the Reformation. Bradley also provides a useful summary of Neale’s work as a vital artistic component of Anglican literature:

Neale felt that his work created a solid foundation for Anglican hymnody that was orthodox, catholic, objective and doctrinally sound as well as deeply devotional While highly scholarly in his approach following the exact measure and of the original wherever possible, he had a natural poetic talent and a facility for clear expression which made his translations popular with Victorian Christians of virtually every denomination and theological hue.38

A selection of some of Neale’s own compositions as a hymn poet include, ‘O happy band of pilgrims’, and ‘Art thou wear art thou languid?’ in his Hymns of the Eastern Church, whilst other translations of ancient hymns include the well-known Compline plainsong hymn ‘Before the

37 Bailey, 200. 38 Bradley, 25-26.

125 ending of the day (‘’); ‘The Royal Banners forward go’ (‘Vexilla Regis prodeunt’); ‘Christ is made the sure foundation’

(‘Angularis fundamentum’); and ‘All Glory laud and honour’ (‘Gloria, laus et honour’).39 These translations, besides being a projection of Neale’s poetical gift, were also a reflection of his desire to meet the exigencies of the new Heber-led calendrical zeal of the Tractarians. Neale also stressed in the preface to his Hymnal Noted that these translation, products of the

‘Early Fathers’ provided not only a link to the early church but contained universal and timeless teachings which were relevant (not least in Neale’s modern ‘interpretations’) to contemporary religion: ‘These very hymns, then have consoled thousands of God’s faithful servants in all kind of circumstances, almost from the days of the Apostles to our own:- and if on this account only, they ought to be dear to us.’40 Moreover, it should also be noted that Neale, in his profound awareness of the Christian calendar, contributed significantly to the early repertoire of translations for the

Easter and Christmas seasons, the latter being especially important as a repertoire in its first flush of youth. Carols were largely considered to be too secular by the nineteenth-century church, but Neale’s translations of

‘Good King Wenceslas looked out’41 and ‘Good Christian men rejoice’

39 All these hymns were taken up by HA&M. 40 Neale, J. M., Preface to A Short Commentary on the Hymnal Noted, (London, 1852), p.v. 41 The Folio Book of Carols, 88.

126 proved immensely popular, not least in Stainer and Bramley’s Christmas

Carols New and Old, first published in 1867.42

3.5 Poetical interpretation of verse leading to Hymns Ancient & Modern

‘Indisputably the representative book of Victorian hymnody’

Nicholas Temperley

‘The full glory of Church of England hymnody was embodied in Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861) which with its various supplements and additions became the bench-mark hymn book of the Victorian Age.’

J. R. Watson

It has already been observed that Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common

Prayer allowed some encouragement for singing, and that, little by little, the opportunities for music increased (as identified by Buchanan) to the point where the production of textual material, notably ones such as

Keble’s The Christian Year, was tailor-made for musical expression within the liturgy and expressly for congregational participation.

Temperley, looking at the hymn’s development and its purpose of enrichment within worship, draws attention not only to the legal status of the hymn and the way it became an integral part of worship, but also to the fact that hymns translated from the Latin Breviary were both Catholic and Evangelical in their substance. Seeing the way in which hymns were already vehicles of religious expression he comments:

42 Ibid., 97.

127 Whilst it is true that traditional high churchmen still preferred metrical psalms, perhaps because other types and variants of hymns were closely connected with Evangelicals or Nonconformists, nevertheless the Evangelical wing of the church found these hymns an important vehicle of religious expression, and since nobody could show that they were illegal, introduced them with growing confidence, ultimately winning a legal victory in 1820. The ’s selection of psalms and hymns that emerged from that episode seem to confer at least in direct authority on hymn--singing. 43

Rainbow, through his surveillance of the musical scene between

1839 and 1872, has to admit that the variety of hymn books did consolidate hymns and tunes which had hitherto been written in magazines, newspapers and journals such as The Parish Choir, or The Christian Observer and in marking out certain publications affirms that:

Books such as Hullah’s Psalter (1843) and Havergal’s Old Church Psalmody (1847) sought to assemble and preserve the best old psalm-tunes. Neale and Helmore’s Hymnal Noted (1852) marked an attempt to restore to use the ancient Sarum melodies. Maurice’s Choral Harmony (1854) following the interest stimulated by Francis Cox’s Sacred Hymns from the German (1841) and extended by Catherine Winkworth’s Lyra Germanica (1855) made the German chorale more widely known. Blew and Gauntlett’s Hymn and Tune Book (1852) and Grey’s Manual (1857) were examples of hymnals notable for the number of newly-composed but enduring tunes which they contained.44

Whilst reference will be made later to the numerous other hymnals and subsequent editions that were to follow HA&M, 1861, it is important prior to examining this musical milestone, to be again reminded first, of

Heber’s unique contribution to Tractarian hymnody which attempted to provide a hymnal, the hymns of which were adapted to the needs of the

43 Ibid., 262. 44 Rainbow, 293.

128 Church’s calendar year and secondly, of Keble’s The Christian Year whose poetic verse has already been discussed earlier. Whilst the publication of

Heber’s hymnal was not authorised for publication by the Archbishops of

Canterbury and London in his lifetime, his widow did publish his collection of hymns in 1827 under the heading of Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. It is true that Heber did use older sources from such writers as Sternhold and Hopkins, Ken Watts, Addison,

Jeremy Taylor, and Wesley as well as contemporary writers such as Dean

Milman and Walter Scott. Reverting to the way Heber’s hymns spiritually and musically enriched as well as chronologically followed the Church’s calendar year, Maurice Frost makes the following comments on the technical arrangements of hymns, when he says:

Hymns varying in number from one to four are provided for every Sunday and principal Festival or Holy Days; in some cases, however, there is no proper hymn but only a cross- reference to one used elsewhere. At the end are added some of the miscellaneous occasions, a ‘A Day of Thanksgiving’, ‘A Time of Distress and Anger’, a ‘Collection for S. P. G.,’ ‘After Sermon’, ‘Before the Sacrament’, ‘Morning’, ‘Evening’, ‘Funeral’, ‘On Recovery from Sickness’. It is interesting that more than half the book, nearly sixty hymns, were Heber’s own.45

Though adverse and reactionary criticism related to hymn books continued, the main argument being that the accent of some hymns was either too passionate and self-confident or exhibiting a different tone from the reverent and sublime mood of the BCP, the publication of hymn books

45 Frost, M., (ed.), Historical Companion to HA&M, (William Clowes: London, 1962),111.

129 continued and became more popular so that the Literary Churchman in 1880 commented on the fact that the Church of England had actually produced on average of one hymnal per year. Moreover, from statistical evidence from the hymnologist Julian, we learn that he personally examined more than 400,000 hymns in his first edition of the Dictionary of Hymnology of

1891. Indeed, Julian, writing on the subject of hymnody, in commenting on the seemingly chaotic position of hymnody during this period, he emphasises:

Blew’s admiral collection was a dead letter. The ‘Hymnal Noted’ had an exceeding limited circulation. Collections of the type of Murray’s ‘Hymnal’ and the Cook and Denton selection were too much alike to ensure the success to either. Mercer’s’ held on its way triumphantly; whilst Kemble with others of the same school as Cotterill, Bickersteth, Carus Wilson, the Psalms and Hymns of E. H. Bickersteth, Stowell, the S. P. C K. Psalms and Hymns and a host of others were in use in more than two-thirds of the chapels and churches of England.46

There is no doubt that through the desire as well as vision of Henry

Baker (1821-1877), the vicar of Monkland, Hertfordshire, to see his scheme for the amalgamation of many hymn books realised into one Church of

England hymnal, that HA&M was soon to become a reality. Monk was chosen by Baker to be musical coadjutor of HA&M which was ready on

Advent Sunday, 1860 and the edition with tunes (prepared under the supervision of Monk), ready by 20 March 1861. It was hoped that HA&M would in some way provide a unifying influence among the growing

46 Julian, J., A Dictionary of Hymnology, Volume I, (Dover Publications, 1957) 338.

130 denominations and dissenters and R. W. Wilkinson draws attention to the importance of this national unifying factor: the case for a popular book which would be widely used was unanswerable. If such a book could be a quality production as well as making intelligent use of all that was best in contemporary hymnody and music, so much the better. A book that was rooted in the history of the Catholic Church but was neither Roman nor cryptic- Roman would have wide appeal indeed. A book which made some concessions to the masses but was reassuring, classical in flavour, with a bias towards the countryside and was conservative in its social teachings, and would rally the Anglican faithful. 47

One might also draw comments from a separate article ‘Hymns’ –

‘Vernacular’, published in the Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, in which

Rainbow, in tracing developments leading to the publication of HA&M, comments first on the urgent need of the Oxford Movement to restore dignity to the Anglican Church service and then looking at the constituent elements of HA&M that helped towards its success states:

Remarkable for its eclecticism, the new book assembled examples of plainsong, psalm-tune, chorale and old church- tune adding to that traditional element some new tunes of a distinctive type by Dykes, Ouseley and Monk. During the remainder of the nineteenth century Hymns Ancient and Modern in successive editions was almost to attain the status of an official Anglican hymnal. 48

Although Lowther Clarke and Brian Castle both acclaimed HA&M as a ‘Tractarian Manifesto’, the new hymn book with its later appendix became less one sided and sectarian and more denominationally

47 Wilkinson, R.W., HA & M, PhD., (unpublished), University of Hull, 1985, 14. 48 Rainbow, B., ‘Vernacular’ cited in (ed.), Davies J.G., A Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship,(S.C.M Press, London, 1978) 195.

131 embracing. With regard to the popularity of HA&M, Castle quotes remarks made by the Chairman of the Proprietors at the Swansea in 1879, W. Pulling, Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford, 1839-

1849, attributing the success of the book to four causes, namely its

‘timelessness; second its meeting the needs of the contemporary church

(by the sending of proofs to many hundreds of clergy and laity); thirdly, to its comprehensiveness and finally to the gifts of Baker.’49

Bradley, alternatively looking at the intention of the compilers of

HA&M, remarks on the universality of the publication:

They, (the Compilers), set out to include the best evangelical and non- Anglican hymnody as well as recently- translated material from the early church. The very title, ‘Ancient and Modern’, supposedly thought up by William Henry Monk, who occupied the post of ‘musical co-adjutor’, was a proclamation of catholicity. So was the declaration of Sir Henry Baker, that the book would include hymns ‘ that would be suitable for singing in mission rooms, at lectures in cottages or meetings of brotherhoods.50

A third appraisal, this time on the musical attributes of this new hymnal is given by Watson who quotes some interesting comments made by The Daily News on HA&M: ‘The new Hymn Book contains a body of ecclesiastical harmony which, in antique and venerable grandeur, plain and simple style, freedom from chromatic crudities, and fitness to be sung

49 Castle, B., Hymns: The Making and Shaping of Theology for the whole people of God, (Peter Lang Press, Germany, 1990), 28. 50 Bradley, 61.

132 by large numbers of voices, is unequalled by any work of this class that has appeared in England.‘51

Perhaps there is yet another unifying factor – a Zeitgeist – when considering HA&M, namely, that The Book of Common Prayer, The

Authorised Version of the Bible and Keble’s The Christian Year, almost like a grand triumvirate of Anglican iconographic texts, seemed to be enshrined in the new hymn book. Quoting S. T. Bindoff, in his book, Tudor England,

Lowther-Clarke substantiates precisely this idea of consolidation when he says of Cranmer:

He (Thomas Cranmer), could not render the hymns of the Catholic Breviary into singable English, and three centuries were to pass before Hymns Ancient and Modern was to complete, with the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorised Version, the splendid trilogy with which the Anglican Church has endowed the English Speaking world.52

Like Heber’s hymn book and Keble’s The Christian Year, HA&M provided material of verse and music expressly for all the seasons of the

Christian calendar whether for ‘Morning’ and ‘Evening’, ‘Easter’, the

‘’, ‘Trinity’, and Saints’ days with five Holy

Communion hymns, namely, ‘Now, my tongue, the mystery telling’, ‘My

God, and is thy table spread’, ‘Bread of Heaven on thee we feed and ‘O

God, unseen yet ever near, thy presence may we feel’.

51 Watson, 420. 52 Lowther-Clarke, W. K., 1.

133 The first edition of HA&M comprised some 273 hymns later to be increased to 386 hymns with the publication of the appendix in 1868.

Julian lists more detailed information on the contents of this new hymnal:

The work (not counting the parts), contained 273 hymns. Of these 132 were from the Latin, 10 from the German, 119 were English and already in use, and 12 were new original hymns. Of the 132 from the Latin, 116 were altered, 33 being from Neale, 29 from Chandler, 17 from Caswall, 11 from Isaac Williams and the rest from about a dozen translators. Sir Henry Williams Baker contributed 6 new translations, the Compilers 5, and 5 were given unaltered from others. The translations from the German were by Miss Winkworth, Miss Cox and Sir Henry Williams Baker, 9 being old and I new (by Sir Henry). The new element in the book was represented therefore by 11 translations from the Latin, 1 from the German and 12 original hymns. 53

In stressing the fact that the first edition of HA&M was more

‘ancient’ in its format, comprising translations from the Latin and other languages and ancient melodies, Temperley sees the 1868 ‘Appendix

Edition’ of the hymnal as offering not only more of a balance of hymns, but more variety from a cross section of churchmanship and, with the inclusion of hymns by Watts and the Wesleys, certainly more in keeping with the ecclesiastical year. He notes that in the Appendix: there were only 26 translations out of 114 hymns, and most of the English hymns by contemporary writers: half its tunes were newly published, and many of the others were from recent publications. Just as with the Hymnal Noted and its appendix, a compromise with the taste of the majority had been found expedient. While the majority of hymns were either ancient or the work of high churchmen, space was also found for traditional English metrical psalms and hymns, including those of Watts, the Wesleys and later Evangelicals; Lutheran hymns and (from 1868) translations from the were set beside medieval and modern Latin

53 Julian, 338-339.

134 hymns. The arrangement followed the Church year, with ample provision for occasional services. In this way the book contained enough of everybody’s favourites to become widely acceptable, while at the same time its prevailing high churchmanship was clearly asserted.54

It is at this point important to realise the important place of women poets and despite the misconception often put forward that there were no women poets, Tess Cosslett corrects this view first by giving the reason for this neglect. There are two possible explanations for their subsequent neglect: one is the general disfavour that things Victorian fell into the earlier part of the century. The second explanation brings in the question of gender - the fact that these were women poets. Jan Montefiore has written convincingly about the way in which women, however famous in their day, got left out when literary history came to be formulated. The illusion given is that there were no women poets, no women novelists - each generation had to start again. The historical recovery of lost women - writers, artists, scientists, feminists – has been a major project of the recent feminist movement. Many women poets who adhered to the Tractarian ethos took their lead from Keble’s The Christian Year; indeed Keble’s work was the benchmark of their poetry and language. From this paradigm women soon developed their own specific religious variant which appeared in the Christian Lady’s Magazine between 1834 and 1849. This was a significant publication, for not only did it provide a platform for many

54 Temperley, 298.

135 women writers, but it also allowed a critical voice to emerge, addressed to no less than John Keble himself. (In volumes 18-20 of the magazine, for example, a series of poems called ‘Notes to the Christian Year’ set out to be

‘corrective rewritings’ which drew attention to papist elements and the seduction of the Church of Rome.) In general, however, the work of these women poets was distinctive for its propensity for prayerful meditation and Christian reflection (such as in Daleth’s ‘The Ocean’ which reinscribes

Keble’s hymn for Septuagesima Sunday ‘There is a book who runs may read’).55

Although only roughly ten per cent of women poets made their spiritual contribution to the 1875 edition of HA&M, it was a unique contribution. Many of these texts became well known such as ‘Nearer my

God to thee’ by Sarah Flower Adams, the ‘catechetical hymns’ (a seminal

Tractarian element) for children on articles of the Creed by Mrs Alexander, such as ‘All things bright and beautiful’,56 (Creation); ‘Once in royal

David’s city’, (The Incarnation)57; ‘There is a green hill far away’(The

Cross)58 which are found in her Hymns for Little Children of 1848. And the work of Caroline Noel should be mentioned for her poem ‘At the name of

55 Cosslett, T.,(ed.),Victorian Women Poets (Longman London & New York,1996),1. and citing Montefiore, J., Feminism and Poetry ( London & New York: Pandora, 1987), pp 20-25. See also Gray, Elizabeth F., ‚Syren Strains‛: Victorian Women’s Devotional Poetry and John Keble’s The Christian Year, Victorian Poetry 44.1 (2006) 61-76. 56 HA&M, (Revised), 442. 57 Ibid., 432. 58 Ibid., 214.

136 Jesus every knee shall bow’,59 and also Emma Toke for her Ascension-tide hymn ‘Thou art gone up on high’.60

In the area of translation it is important also to mention gifted women such as Frances Cox who gave to the Church the advent hymn

‘Sleepers, wake! The watch-cry pealeth’,61 and the Easter hymn ‘Jesus lives! thy terrors now Can no more, O death appal us’;62 Jane Campbell,(1817-

1878), who gave to the Church the harvest hymn ‘We plough the fields and scatter’63 and Catherine Winkworth, (1827-1878), who collated her German translation of hymns in her Lyra Germanica series One in 1855 and series

Two in 1858. Winkworth, gave to the Church hymns such as ‘Christ the

Lord is risen again!’,64 ‘Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness’,65 ‘Lord Jesu

Christ, our Lord most dear’.66

It is also interesting and often forgotten that whilst many of the women hymn-writers enjoyed good health there were those who articulated and expressed important divine truths and subjects related to sickness, suffering, death and heaven and, not surprisingly, their choice of subjects came to them because they themselves were ill for long periods. In this regard, the contribution of Charlotte Elliot, author of The Invalid’s

59 Ibid., 225. 60 Ibid., 149. 61 Ibid., 102. 62 Ibid., 140. 63 Ibid., 483. 64 Ibid., 136. 65 Ibid., 393. 66 Ibid., 425.

137 Hymn Book (1835), Hours of Sorrow cheered and comforted (1836) is significant.

An invalid herself, she lived a short life yet provided the Church ‘Christian seek not yet repose’, ‘Just as I am without one plea’ and ‘My God my

Father, while I stray’. Likewise Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, bed-ridden for many years, wrote the well known text ‘Beneath the Cross of Jesus’ while

Francis Ridley Havergal, who suffered much from ill health, published her

Ministry of Song in 1869 which included ‘I could not do without thee, O

Saviour of the lost’, ‘Take my life and let it be’ and the Whitsuntide hymn

‘To thee, O Comforter Divine, for all thy grace and power benign, Sing we

Alleluia!’

But perhaps the most representative Tractarian woman poet of the age was Christina Rossetti who enthusiastically embraced Anglo-

Catholicism without any leaning towards Romanism. This she did through a strong observance of the sacraments (including ), through support for the Anglican sisterhood (in Park Village West), and her active practical support for children and ‘fallen’ women. Above all, though,

Rossetti was essentially a Christian symbolist in the way she used elements of nature (directly influenced by Keble) to awaken sensibilities to the invisible world. In this she emulated Keble’s The Christian Year but with an intense feeling for image, as one finds for example in the chilling, yet deeply energising, spirit of ‘In the bleak mid-winter’, ‘Love came down at Christmas’ and ‘None other Lamb’ (with its memorable four-syllable

138 refrain) where she exercises, par excellence, her ability to express complex ideas with simplicity and that essence of Tractarian, ‘analogy and reserve’.67

With new hymn tunes being offered by Redhead, Elvey, Goss,

Monk, Ouseley, Gauntlett and Dykes, the latter providing many new tunes for the Appendix to Hymn Ancient and Modern (and to the revised edition of 1875), it was left to Monk to edit the musical contributions to the book and assist Baker. Bernard Braley makes a valid comment when he says:

‘the story of Sir Henry is more than that of a hymn writer: it is the story of a famous book, ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern.’68

Singling out Baker’s contribution to hymnody, made up of many facets in his hymn mosaic, such as joy, sadness and spiritual challenge,

Julian, also says of Baker’s array of hymns: four only are in the highest strains of jubilation, another four are bright and cheerful and the remainder are very tender, but exceedingly plaintive, sometimes even to sadness. Even those which at first seem bright and cheerful have an undertone of plaintiveness, and leave a dreamy sadness upon the spirit of the singer. Poetical figures, far-fetched illustrations, and difficult compound words, he entirely eschewed. In his simplicity of language, smoothness of rhythm and earnestness of utterance, he reminds one forcibly of the saintly Lyte. The last audible words which lingered on his dying lips were the third stanza of his exquisite rendering of the 23rd Psalm, ‘The King of Love, my Shepherd is’:

Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, But yet in love he sought me,

67 For further discussion on Rossetti and Tractarianism, see D’Amico, D. & Kent, D. A., ‘Rossetti and the Tractarians’, Victorian Poetry 44.1 (2006), 93-103. 68 Braley, B., Hymnwriters (2), (Stainer and Bell: London 1989), 124.

139 And on His shoulder, gently laid, And home, rejoicing, brought me.

This tender sadness, brightened by a soft calm peace, was an epitome of his poetic life.69

With the Appendix to HA&M of 1868, followed by a new Standard

Edition in 1875, and another Supplement in 1889, each edition adding new verses and tunes, it was not long before some half a million copies had been sold. Again Temperley gives some idea of the popularity of HA&M as well as of its use in cities such as London and Sheffield as well as in rural churches:

The proportion of London churches using it had reached one in four as early as 1867, when it had already overtaken its nearest rival, the S. P. C. K. Psalms and Hymns. In subsequent years its share rose steadily, until by 1894 it was used in three out of every five London churches, and in three out of every four of those less than twenty years old. The provincial city of Sheffield showed greater resistance, with only 38 per cent by 1915, rising to 55 per cent in 1928. But in rural areas its dominance was almost total.70

Reflecting on the success of HA&M, one quite rightly rejoices at such a transformation taking place in churches where choir and congregation were at last participating in using a comprehensive hymn book which followed the Tractarian ideal of the Church’s calendar year and provided hymns not only for services but other occasions too. In cathedrals the take-up was later, but, by 1877, St Paul’s Cathedral used the book to the exclusion of all others.

69 Julian, 107. 70 Temperley, 299.

140 Frost saw HA&M as a new venture having evolved through much effort and discussion as well as heartache for many of the editors and compilers. Nevertheless, he saw the convergence of many lines of theological as well as musical interest and saw the venture in what he called: a gathering up of the old and the new both in words and music, ranging from the old Latin hymns, with their plainsong melodies, to the new hymnody, which the Christian Year had inspired, with the new type of hymn-tune; and finding a place at the same time for the for the best of the German hymns and tunes which prove congenial to English congregations.71

If Frost uses the term ‘convergence ‘ of lines of theological and musical interest’ which led to the publication of HA&M, then Watson uses the term ‘evolution’ to describe the development of the ‘Christian hymn’ by drawing an analogy with Darwinism and the fact that the English hymn had experienced a process of evolution and transformation (not to mention ‘progress’) from its earliest beginnings to the harmonically sophisticated grandeur of the Victorian hymn which was able to cater for a wide range of sacred days and festivals in the church’s calendar year and the hymn book’s ‘beneficial variations’.72 Dibble, in his paper on the

‘Musical trends of the western church: a collection of the ‘ancient’ and

‘modern’’, not only makes reference to the new secular age, heralded by the philosophical developments of the Enlightenment, major events such

71 Frost, 119. 72 Watson, 340 & 342.

141 as American Independence and the French Revolution, all signalling a sea change in music’s function within society,73 but also to HA&M, with the widest audience appeal to all branches of the church with its combination of Gregorian melodies, chorales, eighteenth-century psalm tunes and hymns specially written for the collection, though it was the latter that caught the contemporary imagination.74

Bradley, on the other hand, makes reference to both to the work of

Lionel Adey in his study, Class and Idol in the English Hymn and Tamke’s book, Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord: Hymns as a Reflection of Victorian

Social Attitudes, on the important subject of an ‘Incarnational’ portrayal of

Christ as friend and brother in preference to One who through suffering and his shed blood on the Cross, makes ‘Atonement’ as ‘Victim’ for the sin of the world. In the context of hymnody, Bradley cites Tamke’s definitive observation on this theological trend in the selection of the themes for hymns, as the ‘process of secularisation or at least the humanisation apparent in the portrayal of Jesus with its movement away from the intensely physical blood-soaked imagery of the eighteenth century, towards the notion of friend, brother and role model’. This is, of course, in part a reflection of a significant shift in theological emphasis during the

73 Dibble, J., ‘Musical trends and the Western Church’: a collision of the ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’’, in Gilley, S. & Stanley, B., (eds.), The Cambridge History of World Christianities, c. 1815-1914, Vol. 8, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 2006), 121. 74 Ibid., 135.

142 Victorian period from ‘Atonement to Incarnation’. It is significant that most of the great Passion and Easter hymns date from before the middle

1860’s. There are also clear hymn-echoes of the movement from the ‘Christ of faith’ to the ‘Jesus of history’. There was (as Bradley quotes from

Tamke) also a move, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, ‘away from the complacent imperialism of early Victorian mission hymns towards a much greater expression of the social gospel and an appreciation of the value of the Christian humility’.75 Furthermore, Castle also examines other general theological attitudes as well as metaphors using military symbolism, contrasts between light and darkness as well as the whole concept of election and predestination that make up the thought and verse forms in HA&M, and, drawing from Stephen Wilson’s article

‘Religious and Social Attitudes in HA&M’, argues:

Wilson sees sacred songs as examples and indicators of religious attitudes and important for their latent sociological and psycho- sociological content. The main themes encountered in A & M were concepts of the Deity, concepts of the relationship between man and God, which was frequently presented in masochistic and erotic terms, a dualist symbolism of light and darkness, a symbolism of liquidity and purification, the concept of election, military imagery, the explicit recommendation of obedience and social conformity, the sense of sin and the promise of paradise in an after life.76

As is well known, the 1904 revision of HA&M did not come up to expectation, despite four committee meetings whose objective had been to

75 See Bradley, 109. 76 Castle, 30.

143 provide some degree of continuity of the Tractarian tradition and imprint of spiritual, musical and poetical essence that had inspired earlier editions of HA&M. It had been hoped that further hymn translations from the

Latin, plus more authentic plainsong had hoped to provide as it were a spring clean of HA&M with a more careful scrutiny of the words and tunes of many hymns used by English church congregations. But the time had come for a new hymnal entitled The English Hymnal, which, whilst preserving Tractarian and Anglo-Catholic principles, provided a more qualitative and fresh collection of musical as well as liturgical material. As well as containing Office Hymns and Propers for the sung Eucharist, together with choral settings by J. S. Bach, tunes from and

Henry Lawes, and native folksongs, other musical elements reflected

Vaughan Williams’s views on changing taste and his desire for the hymnal to express something of a new national (indeed nationalist) identity.

Besides including texts by contemporary poets such as Robert Bridges (the editor of the Yattendon Hymnal) and Laurence Housman, poems by

Tennyson and Christina Rossetti, there are new tunes such as SINE

NOMINE (‘For all the saints who from their labours rest’), DOWN

AMPNEY (‘Come down O Love divine’), FOREST GREEN (‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’) and MONK’S GATE (‘He who would valiant be’) from

Vaughan Williams’s own pen (together with contemporary tunes by Holst,

Darke, Ireland and Buck) which represent a more transparently diatonic

144 English hymn. This prompted Watson to make the point that the compilers, conscious of a new and growing nationalism, were anxious to reach back into English tradition. Cutting across the medley and sundry offerings of the poetic divide he states: three translations from the works of Venerable (none of which proved very successful; St Patrick’s Breastplate, from the early Irish and translated by Mrs Alexander, on the other hand, was a great success). There were seventy-two hymns and translations by J. M. Neale, and thirteen by Robert Bridges; ten hymns by Watts and twenty by Charles Wesley. They had brilliant success with Christina Rossetti’s ‘In the bleak mid-winter’, and they tried other English poets, such as Spenser’s ’Most glorious Lord of Life, that on this day’), Blake (‘To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love’), and Tennyson (‘Strong Son of God, immortal Love’). The point of these examples is to show that the compilers of The English Hymnal had their eyes open.77

One of the interesting features of The English Hymnal was its close attention and care not to side- step or ignore Anglican ‘devotional hymns’ particularly those dealing with the search for holiness of life propounded by the Tractarians. In this regard the compilers of The English Hymnal were careful to include hymns to be used for ‘Saints’ days’; children’s hymns bound up with the teaching of the Catechism; hymn themes characterising social justice and national identity.

Nevertheless the contribution of the hymn poets and the effective marriage of their verse to melody and harmony live on and are used regularly today in Sunday worship. It was Vidler, quoting words from

77 Watson, 516-517.

145 Edward Stuart Talbot, the first warden of Keble College, who in emphasising the legacy of the Tractarian poets, remarked:

We feel ourselves their children and disciples, yet we cannot be called merely to repeat, or even continue their work. Theirs was a time for relaying the foundations, for planting roots firm and deep. For them it was a duty, as well as a policy, to concentrate, to bring out the old theology, the lines of the old tradition, the old Church system, with all its many sidedness, the courage of its appeal to supernatural premises and forces, and yet the wisdom of its balance

78 Vidler, A. R., 191.

146 PART II

The Tractarian ‘Blueprint’ and the Evolution of the Anglican Hymn-tune as an Art Form

The English hymn tune during the Victorian era was easily the most interesting of England’s contributions to music at that time; it was the only genuinely English musical form available. All other music in England was Continental in sympathy and ethos.

(Routley, The Musical Wesleys, 1968) .

The greatest musical achievement of the period was the Victorian hymn-tune, which brought together all parties of the Church and gave congregations a genuine and appropriate part to play in joint performance with choir and organ. The best Victorian hymns are among the monuments of English Church music, and have ample strength to survive the ferocious criticism they have received. They transcended all the anxieties and ambitions about gentility and good taste, and, paradoxically, gave the people once more a popular church music. As a minority of the Committee on Church Worship would put it in 1918, ‘In hymns there is a really living and popular interest in British Christianity.’

(The Worship of the Church: (London 1918), 36; quoted in Temperley, 314)

147

CHAPTER FOUR

The Tractarian Hymn and its Musical Pioneers

4.1 The early Nineteenth-Century: From Metrical Psalmody to Tractarian hymnody

Anglican hymnody at the beginning of the nineteenth century had moved on remarkably little from its eighteenth-century paradigm of the metrical psalm. Hymn tunes were considered to be simple entities, strophic in design, uncomplicated in their phraseology, their accompanying harmony, their key structure (if one existed), the syllabic setting of the text and the pre- eminent emphasis on concordant sound. Moreover, hymn tunes were essentially a melodic agency in uniform rhythm with supporting harmony for voices and/or organ. There was, on the whole, little variation from this standard template. Simplicity suited the ecclesiastical environment.

Congregations were, especially in rural areas, largely illiterate and the repetition and reinforcement of simple tunes provided an apposite musical diet for churches with few or no singers, let alone an organised choir or a trained organist. Indeed, at the end of the eighteenth century, church music within Anglican worship was at a low ebb, even within cathedrals where greater financial support for music was potentially concentrated. Accounts of

148 slapdash worship, liturgical malaise and laissez faire were numerous, not least in John Jebb’s account of order within English cathedrals1 and the need for ecclesiastical reform, root and branch, was imperative. The singing of hymns, or effectively, metrical psalms, within the Anglican Church was often little more than a dirge and the place of the hymn as genre appeared to have no future, either liturgically or creatively. Of course, initially, the good intentions of pioneers such as had sought to inspire a new wave of hymnody during the eighteenth century. Transformations of psalms such as

Psalm 72 into ‘Jesus shall reign where’er the sun’ (from Psalmodia Evangelica of 1789, sung familiarly to TRURO), ‘O God, our help’ to ST ANNE, and

Robert Grant’s interpretation of Psalm 104 to HANOVER gave some signs of melodious invention, and tunes like EASTER HYMN offered the added

‘’ refrain as a euphonious means of enhancing an adapted melody from Lyra Davidica. But these were largely exceptions to a repertoire that offered little variation. John and Charles Wesley adapted psalmody into a more contemporary vein of expression. Indeed, the music appropriated by

Methodist worship in the eighteenth century was distinctly modern in its ethos, borrowing much that was familiar melodically to the opera, the theatre and the concert hall. Examples such as Purcell’s ‘Fairest Isle’ from King Arthur wedded to Charles Wesley’s ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’ are

1 Rainbow, B., The Choral Revival in the Anglican Church, 1839-1872.(The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, 2001), 31-32 & 253-257.

149 demonstrative of such a tradition. However, while this particular branch of

Methodism had a distinctly secular ethos, Welsh Non-Conformism and the short, crisp and incisiveness of Scottish introduced a new vocal energy to the hymn which militated against the familiar drone of disinterested congregations in the Established Church.

The advent of the Non-Conformist hymn had a major effect on the

Tractarian revival and, subsequently, on the evolution of the Anglican hymn for several reasons. In Methodism the purpose of the hymn was to express personal conviction and collective faith. ‘Singing out’ was a form of testimony and could happily stand in place of preaching or a homily. Non-conformist hymn books formed a thematic matrix based on elements of credal affirmation rather than calendrical observance of the liturgical year. While this style of worship was at odds with the more formal Anglican style of liturgy, the zeal and enthusiasm for congregational singing was hugely influential to those Tractarians who saw congregational participation as a vital part of their revivalist strategy.

Infused with the fresh style of the Non-Conformist hymn,

Anglicanism, concerned that it was not to lose its congregation to the

Dissenters, sought to re-invent its own tradition of hymn-singing and, more importantly, hymn-composition. As has been discussed in the first three chapters above, Tractarians were keen to project through hymnody, not so much a subjective view of salvation as was the aim of the Methodists and

150 Evangelicals, but instead a more objective appraisal of the Church ‘militant here on earth’. The purpose of hymnody, and, for that matter, other forms of choral worship such as anthems and service music, were therefore to serve the larger purpose of involving ‘the whole of the nature of man, his body, mind and spirit’ in worship focusing on ‘the altar, a restoration of the chancel and the enrichment of the vestments of the priest in an effort to turn the thoughts of the worshippers away from themselves and towards the

Almighty.’2 The means of this projection was to take on a highly varied panoply of artistry. To the Tractarian poets, Romantic symbolism formed part of a larger, grandiose canvas which, allied to the new order of the liturgy, the lectionary, the attention to ritual, vestments, deportment, elaborate musical organisation, training and choreography, encouraged the growth of the hymn as, not only an integral part of liturgical worship at both parish and cathedral levels, but a musical focus for organists, choirmasters, congregations, but, perhaps most importantly, choirs. The hymn, therefore, became a genre full of creative aspiration which was no longer simply an expression of enthusiasm or personal faith, but one that was a complex accumulation of textual, musical and spiritual involution. In fact, so elaborate did the Tractarian hymn become that the artistic imput of composer and poet combined to create an entity not far removed from a Gesamtkunstwerk in its unity of environment and multiple artistic components.

2 Temperley, 252.

151 The many themes conceived and adopted by the Tractarian poets provided a major source of texts for Victorian composers in the 1850s and

1860s and the romantic idealised poetry produced was undoubtedly an important form of inspiration for a new kind of hymn tune which aspired to prise itself away from the phraseological slavery of the old metric structures inherited from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century psalmody. In the early phase of hymn composition this process took time and it is interesting to note that, in some tunes, the old manner of dominant melody and four-square metre still prevails. So, incidentally, does an uneventful diatonic style of harmony. However, with time, one can observe how, with an increasingly broad harmonic language influenced by continental developments of chromaticism, the harmonic parlance of many hymn composers began to embrace a wider expressiveness and sensuality which was more readily able to portray those romantic and theological sentiments which were left ‘high and dry’ within the older style.

4.2 The Early Tractarian Hymn: Redhead, Gauntlett and Elvey

When Oxford Tractarian, Frederick Oakeley, became the incumbent of

Margaret Chapel, Westminster in 1839, the place where he was keen to innovate worship from a Tractarian perspective, he lost no time in appointing

152 Tractarian pioneer hymn-tune composer, Richard Redhead, as organist.3

Together he and Redhead encouraged the congregation at Margaret Chapel to join in the worship using a parish-pointed psalter to help the choir and congregation with the chanting. If the Tractarian revival ideas and influences were being felt both at Margaret Street Chapel and at Christ Church, Albany

Street, St Pancras, the musical developments in hymn-tune writing were also a counterpart to this development, and in conjunction with Oakeley’s innovations, Redhead composed chants, responses, settings of the Sanctus and 26 hymn tunes published as Church Hymn Tunes in 1853.

The more highly ornamented environment of Margaret Street,

Westminster, closely associated with the Cambridge Ecclesiological Society,

Anglo-Catholicism, many Oxford men fresh from their theological training, and W. E. Gladstone who worshipped there, provided Redhead with a rich theological backdrop in which to compose and develop his interests in hymnody. A number of his best known hymns reflect the Tractarian predilection for translations of ancient texts, as promulgated by exponents such as J. M. Neale, Benjamin Webbe and Edward Caswall. A prime example

3 Richard Redhead had been a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford in the late 1820 and early 1830’s. Here he would almost certainly have become aware of Magdalen’s ‘high’ practices even prior to the Oxford Movement). It is significant that he was appointed as organist to Margaret Street, Westminster in 1839 when he was only nineteen years of age. Oakeley clearly felt that he was entirely sympathetic to his high church ‘Anglo Catholic’ experiment of a parochial surpliced choir. There is evidence from the diaries of Frederic Bulley (Magdalen College Library College), President of Magdalen College that the College intended to re-employ Redhead during the absence of their organist Benjamin Blyth in 1859. This sequence of events eventually led to the appointment of who was himself only nineteen and a half (I am grateful to Professor Jeremy Dibble for this information).

153 of Redhead’s art is the tune ST PRISCA (see Ex. 1) written for .

Taken from Oakeley’s Devotions commemorative of the Passion (1842), the text is a translation from the Latin of St Bonaventura and reflects the early

Tractarian preoccupation with the Passion and its major significance for a deeper understanding of the Atonement. Indeed, Oakeley’s translation not only communicates the theology of the Passion but the more immediate, romantically-conceived physicality of Christ’s suffering and agony.

In the Lord’s atoning grief Be our rest and sweet relief; Store we deep in heart’s recess All the shame and bitterness. (F. Oakeley)

Ex. 1: ST PRISCA (Redhead)

Redhead’s response to Oakeley’s poetry was, as in most of his hymn tunes, to retain the older, regular, conservative phraseology of eighteenth-century

154 metrical psalms. ST PRISCA’s metre is an unrelenting 7.7.7.7., the homophony is similarly unremarkable in its simple diatonic harmony and modulatory formulae (line 1 – tonic; line 2 – dominant; line three tonic; line 4

– tonic) and the rhythmic movement is uniformly the same for all four phrases but the dotted figure at the close of each line serves both to provide a moment of reflective pause and an emphasis on key words of the poetry (e.g. in verse one, atoning grief, sweet relief, heart’s recess and bitterness). However, certain subtleties are thrown into relief by Redhead’s elusively simple canvas.

Though rhythmically uniform, the phrase structure reveals one where the first line is reiterated as the last (i.e. ABCA), hence giving the first line a sense of additional accentuation (most appropriate to the essence of the poem ‘In the Lord’s atoning grief’) and acting as an understated ‘refrain’ (a structural device much seemingly often used by the Tractarians).

Peter Wilton comments on the use of the term ‘Refrain’ drawing attention to its origins in poetry where it describes a recurrent phrase in the text. Where music is concerned Wilton continues, ‘it is applied to music in different ways: in a song referring to a section of a recurrent text usually with the same or different music;

In instrumental music it refers to a recurrent sections of a piece. The Repertory with which the term is commonly associated is that of 12th-14th century French song found in courtly ‘romances’ ‘dance songs’ ‘caroles’ ‘plays’: also motets such as the ‘rondeau’, the ‘virelai’ and ‘ballad’ which all have refrains. There is much repetition. Some other forms give their refrains

155 specific names; the refrain of the medieval carol is known as a ‘burden’ synonymous with the chorus (a Group as opposed to the soloist). 4

Line two, which modulates to the dominant, provides, with its additional buoyancy, a counterstatement of ‘sweet relief’ to ‘atoning grief’. The one divergence from Redhead’s otherwise simple progressions occurs in line three in which two diminished harmonies (using a fan-like movement between alto and bass) provide us with a temporary modulation to D minor, enhancing the sense of darkness (particularly poignant in verses one, two and five), before equilibrium is restored with the ‘refrain’-repeat of line one.

Redhead’s brand of simple artifice in his hymns tended to remain within his largely conservative parameters. PETRA (see ex. 2), for example, follows a similarly uniform metre, 7.7.7.7.7.7. though of six lines in length, and much of the same simple rhythm and diatonic harmony prevails, even to the point of dotted punctuating lines one, four and five. The famous text of this hymn, ‘Rock of ages’, was taken from the Calvinist, A. M.

Toplady’s Psalms and Hymns of 1776, though its sentiments proved to be central to the English Church as a whole; moreover, from a Tractarian standpoint its references to Peter and the parallel with Moses in the wilderness represented an important focus of New Testament fulfilment of the Old, and an emphasis on Apostolic succession. Redhead’s tune, limited

4 Wilton, P., ‘Refrain’ in The New Oxford Companion to Music, (Oxford University Press,2000) 1039-

156 like ST PRISCA in range, rises no further than a sixth above the tonic and its structural legerdemain lies in its

Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the Water and the Blood, From Thy riven Side which flow’d, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power. (A. M. Toplady)

Ex. 2: PETRA (Redhead) phrase organisation where we once again experience an inbuilt ‘refrain’ in line five but with a subtle variation of line two in line six. In addition, line four is a repetition of line three save for the inclusion of Redhead’s favoured dotted rhythm and with a modulation to the dominant. Underlying this structure, however, is Redhead’s simple motivic uniformity of rising phrases which serves to mimic physically the ascent to the Rock of Meribah as well as to Calvary. LAUS DEO, which sets the translation of Bishop Mant from the

Roman Breviary (in Ancient Hymns of 1837), covers similar ground in terms of

157 rhythmic movement, and the tonal structure of the four lines copies that of ST

PRISCA). This time, however, Redhead places greater focus on the harmonic dimension of the tune as a whole where a tempered use of dissonance is central to the tune’s internal structure. The 4-3 suspension at the end of line one and the melodic movement (B-A-A-G) is then duplicated in the bass sequence in line two; the same suspension then begins line three, while the registral climax in line four places special emphasis on the 4-3 suspension (C-

E-E-D) and the culmination of the verse ‘To entrance the prophet’s ear’). This uncomplicated but effective sense of motivic involution provides cement to the musical infrastructure and is prophetic of the greater compositional richness that occurs later in Dykes, Stainer and Barnby. However, at this early stage, Redhead’s focus is also on the gradual registral ascent of the melody which is surely designed to evoke Isaiah’s vision with its reverential connotations to every altar within Christendom and its focus on holiness, again a Tractarian watchword.

158

Bright the vision that delighted Once the sight of Judah’s seer; Sweet the countless tongues united To entrance the prophet’s ear. (Bishop Mant) Ex. 3: LAUS DEO (Redhead)

If Redhead was able as organist and hymn-tune composer to develop his skills in what might be described as the ideal Tractarian environment of regular worship at St Margaret’s Street Chapel and Christ’s Church, Albany

Street St. Pancras, under the watchful eye of Oakeley, probably the most influential organist and church musician of his generation was Henry John

Gauntlett. Gauntlett possessed strong views on the nature of church music which he expressed in the Parish Choir in 1846: ‘There are a certain catalogue of harmonies peculiar proper for Divine Service, and cannot be heard out of

Church: are these to be given up< because some fifty out of five hundred

159 worshippers desire to sing an extempore harmony, to which they have paid no previous attention or study?5

In fact Gauntlett was distinctly suspicious of the encroachment of romantic harmonic practices within church music, even though he much admired the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann.6 Gauntlett cleaved rather to the old classical aesthetic of the late eighteenth century and much of his language deferred more readily to Mozart. Indeed, Attwood, organist of St

Paul’s Cathedral, wanted Gauntlett to join him as his assistant, though this was thwarted by the father’s desire to see him train as a lawyer. In fact

Gauntlett did practise law for 15 years but he was inevitably drawn to music and was organist at St Olave’s Church in Southwark where one of several

German-style organs was installed. From 1839, Gauntlett was engaged in the composition of well nigh 1,000 hymn tunes and in the compilation of many hymn books. He retained an interest in Gregorian chant which a branch of the

Tractarians enthusiastically pursued, though in other areas Gauntlett’s views of Tractarianism, like those of Ouseley, were tempered by a loyalty to the older ‘’ views and to the somewhat outmoded and deeply conservative musical values espoused by William Crotch. Many of

Gauntlett’s hymn tunes, which are still popular, follow this conservative

5 Temperley, 248. 6 Gaunlett who did much to encourage German-style organ-building in this country, was a close disciple and student of Mendelssohn’s Bach-playing and was organist at the world’s premier in Birmingham of Elijah under the composer’s baton in 1846.

160 outlook, in some instances to quite an extreme. ST GEORGE, a setting of a translation by Bishop Woodward of Charles Coffin’s Christmas hymn ‘God from on high hath heard’ (from Hymni Sacri of 1736), demonstrates his strong affinity for consonance, simplicity of harmony and avoidance of embellishment or chromatic ‘emotional’ intensity. In fact, Gauntlett’s notion of the hymn is deeply traditional, and rooted in the eighteenth-century metrical psalm. The same might be said of ST ALBINUS, an Easter hymn using a translation by Frances Elizabeth Cox from C. F. Gellert’s original text,

‘Jesus lives! no longer now’. Here the harmony and procession of chords is almost uniformly consonant, though Gauntlett’s phraseological design reveals a degree of artifice in (a) the declamatory unison opening, (b) the bass motive at the beginning of line two and (c) the sequential use of this motive in lines three and four and (d) the ‘Alleluia’ apotheosis of the refrain. Moreover, there is surely the suggestion here that Gauntlett is invoking the ‘peal of church bells’ in the opening unison proclamation.

161

Jesus lives! No longer now Can thy terrors, death, appal us; Jesus lives! By this we know Thou, O grave, canst not enthral us. Alleluia! (F. E. Cox, from the German) Ex. 4: ST ALBINUS (Gauntlett)

More classical in harmonic content, metre (which recalls a classical minuet) and expression is GAUNTLETT (though in older editions of HA&M, it bears the title of LAUDATE DOMINUM, though this was probably reassigned to

Parry’s well known tune adapted from his anthem ‘Hear my words, ye people’ for HA&M of 1904) which accompanies Henry Baker’s famous ‘O praise ye the Lord’ from Psalm 150. Here Gauntlett’s harmony is again largely simple, but there are indications of more ‘ambitious’ dissonances or

162 suspensions (note for example the sequence of suspension in lines five and six) and the range of the melody is more strident, as if especially well-attuned for organ accompaniment (in keeping with Baker’s musical references). Two other tunes also come within the foursquare and conservative category of

Gauntlett’s hymn tunes namely, ST ALPHEGE and UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.

ST. ALPHEGE is set to the words, ‘Brief life is here our portion’ which, with the hymns ‘The world is very evil’, ‘For thee, O dear country’ and ‘Jerusalem the golden’, may be treated together as ‘Centos’ from a long poem by Bernard of Cluny (1140). These hymns were translated by Neale. The transient nature of life with all its sorrows and struggles will be more than compensated in heaven which is described as the ‘sweet and blessed country’ and the place where Almighty God and His Son Jesus, reigns in glory. ST. ALPHEGE, set in G Major, is simple, consonant and couched in the common 7.6.7.6 metre often favoured by Gauntlett. Its tonal plan is highly conservative, remaining firmly in the tonic for lines one, three and four, with only line two varied in its half-close. Again there are signs of involution: lines one and three are motivically linked in the upward motion, and two and four ape a similar shape. In addition, the ‘climax’ of the tune at the end of the third line is the one place where inner parts move against the semibreve of the melody.

Otherwise, however, the musical purview is limited. By contrast,

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, though sharing many of the same features as the aforementioned tunes, its strong progressions are more evocative of a

163 ‘militant’ style (a central feature of the Tractarian mindset) as expressed in

Henry Kirk White’s ‘Oft in danger, oft in woe’. This sense of muscularity is more effectively conveyed in the third line where the sequence is given additional momentum by the crotchet movement of the inner parts, and the unexpected passing modulation to the relative minor (D minor) at the beginning of line four (which underscores the word ‘strength’ in verses one and two.

These examples of Gauntlett portray him firmly as a largely reactionary influence in the composition of hymn tunes. In many ways his art was more embryonic than that of Redhead, yet, curiously, in spite of his outspoken dicta about the nature of church music and harmony, Gauntlett seems to have laid aside this principle in other tunes which show him to have been capable of a passionate, more overtly romantic sensibility such as one finds in CRY OF FAITH and ST BARNABAS, but these require discussion at a later stage.

One other name stands out as a significant contributor to the old style of hymn set to Tractarian verse. George Job Elvey, whose fame probably rests nowadays on his lengthy appointment as organist of St George’s Chapel,

Windsor, produced several notable hymns for the church’s year. His setting of Catholic convert Matthew Bridges’ ‘Crown him with many crowns’ first appeared in Hymns of the Heart (2nd edition, 1851) but was also taken up by the first edition of HA&M. Designed for Ascensiontide, Elvey’s robust hymn,

164 rather Handelian in its neo-baroque harmonic demeanour (a stylistic feature also to be found in his service music and anthems), mirrors the Christian feast with its marked ascent in the first line, together with the rising sequence in lines five and six, itself part of a general melodic upward gradient from the end of line four to the climax in line seven. Moreover, the topos of this hymn in moving sharpwise is set in motion by the germane sense of moving to the dominant in lines three and four:

Crown Him with many crowns, The Lamb upon His Throne; Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns All music but its own: Awake, my soul, and sing

165

Of Him who died for thee; And hail Him as thy matchless King Through all eternity. (M. Bridges) Ex. 5: DIADEMATA (Elvey)

Elvey’s hymns, like those of Redhead and Gauntlett, tend to fight shy of more expressive chromatic movement, a fact confirmed by tunes such as

DATCHET (using the deeply pious verse of George Rawson’s ‘With gladness we worship’) and the well-known ST GEORGE, originally set to Jane Leeson’s

Easter hymn ‘Christ the Lord is risen today’, though it is now more often sung at another period of the Christian year much favoured by the

Tractarians, at harvest, to Henry Alford’s ‘Come ye thankful people, come’.

Like DIADEMATA, ST GEORGE is big-boned in its harmonic architecture and draws much of its structural success from the sequential construction of lines one and two, five and six (which emulates DIADEMATA) and the splendid sequential descent and climax in line seven.

4.3 Monk: HA&M, artifice and early music

It is no small coincidence that William Henry Monk, (1823-1889), also a

Tractarian organist and hymn-tune composer as well as Director of the Choir at King’s College, London, should be appointed on the recommendation of

Sir Henry Baker as well as by the Committee for HA&M to be musical editor

166 and coadjutor of all hymn tunes that were to be part of this new hymnal which was launched on 20 March 1861. Whilst Monk provided some 15 original hymn-tunes for the first edition of HA&M and was responsible for more than 60 musical hymn-tune arrangements, it was in fact he who suggested the title to Baker and the Committee, apparently derived from a letter from the Emperor Julian to one of his pagan pontiffs, in which he is quoted as saying that it was right to learn hymns since there were many excellent ones from both ‘ancient and modern writers’.

So what one is clearly suggesting is that with the appointment of Monk as musical editor of HA&M, the selection of musical material, whether from ancient sources, including the Parisian, German and Mozarabic Breviaries, or from contemporary sources, was able to be either accepted, modified, or perhaps re- arranged so that it was indeed singable and from his point of view fell within what he considered to be Tractarian parameters. Such parameters would indeed include attention to good spiritual poetry, a good translation whether by J. M. Neale or E. Caswall, a rather broader objective vocabulary, rather than a subjective one, a vocabulary using theological and holiness terms which were doctrinally treated so that the whole Tractarian

Anglo-Catholic initiative and ethos would be encouraged and fostered.

Whilst one takes note of Betram Barnby’s comment that if you gave Monk ‘a good opening musical phrase, he would construct a tune having the ring of inevitability’ or B. Massey’s comment that ‘Monk was able to rewrite old

167 melodies and make them respectable: the foreign he Anglicized; the English he Victorianized’, one becomes conscious that Tractarian hymn-tune writers on the frontiers of musical development began to realise that if the rebuilt or even new Tractarian churches took on the adornment of Gothic style architecture coupled with ritualistic beauty musically and enhanced by the new organs and surpliced choirs, it was therefore in the interests of the composers to see in their hymn-tune writing ideas from the past as well as the present.

While many of Monk’s tunes appear to emulate earlier practices of the metrical psalm, and of popular hymns from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, his work shows a surprising level of detailed invention and musical integrity which belies their simplicity.

Musically speaking, Monk’s tune ST. ETHELWALD in G Major

(supporting Charles Wesley’s military-type hymn ‘Soldiers of Christ arise’), seems to follow the usual four-square structure and almost predetermined harmonic modulation that we have seen in the hymn tunes of Redhead i.e. a familiar format from tonic to dominant; thence to V of E minor followed by a return to the tonic. Monk’s fondness for the archaic, even chorale-like nature of his harmony (note the Bach-like cadential progressions of II7b-V-I) is betrayed in the Phrygian cadence at the end of the third line, though the more contemporary aspect of the tune is revealed in the resolution not to E minor but to the dominant of A minor (the submediant of G) at the beginning of the

168 final line. In a bolder, more experimental vein, is Monk’s hymn tune

VIGILATE in E Flat, set to Elliot’s hymn ‘Christian! seek not yet repose’ from her private selection of poems entitled Morning and Evening Hymns for the

Week, 1839. Whilst it follows the same harmonic and punctuated pattern as so many early nineteenth-century tunes (perfect cadence – imperfect – interrupted – perfect), the unusual metre of the Elliot’s poem, 7.7.7.3, dictates another ‘refrain’ conclusion which draws attention to the epigrammatic meaning of each closing line.

The hymn-tune MERTON, (setting Caswall’s translation of the tenth- century text for Lauds, found in the Mozarabic rite and sung at Vespers on

Wednesdays, ‘Hark a thrilling voice is sounding *now often ‘calling’+’) continues the trend of simplicity and the chorale-like procession of harmonies; (note the same Bachian cadence in lines two and four) of

VIGILATE (the fundamental tonal scheme is almost identical). But there is artifice in Monk’s strident opening two lines, which rise to the fifth (C) and remain there for the modulation to the dominant. The image of the clarion is implicit in Monk’s opening phrase commensurate with the Advent season for which it was designed (as is the rising bass of the plagal cadence), and finds additional appositeness in the opening lines of verse four. Furthermore,

Caswall’s ‘casting away’ of darkness is carefully reflected in the gradual descent (partly sequential) of the melodic line in lines three and four, where the text leans towards a sense of penitence, forgiveness and mercy. Probably

169 Monk’s best-known tune is EVENTIDE, setting Lyte’s evening vision ‘Abide with me’ from his Remains of 1830 (written and composed after preaching his last service in Brixham Parish Church).7 Here the typically Tractarian obsession with the transient nature of life, the ‘close of each day’, is compared not only with the fact that nature as well as all man’s achievements in the world fall victim to change and decay but human kind and the human body is also subject to the ageing process. Lyte makes the point in his verse that the eternal Creator is not subject to change but as well as being present to comfort, guide, and ward off the enticements of evil in His Son Jesus Christ,

He has, through his passion and resurrection, offered to all mankind the undeniable truth that whether in life or death the Christian pilgrim can be assured of immortality and joy in the hereafter. Lyte purposely uses the repeated intercessory words ‘Abide with me’ at the end of each verse

(incidentally, a popular device among Tractarians in their later poetry) as a means of emphasis, but once again, it is the accent of ‘refrain’ that renders the poetry so memorable. Monk, who largely favoured a more conservative style of diatonic harmony – reflecting his particular interests in older music and plainsong – was, nevertheless, able to build in a considerable degree of musical artistry which, through the use of musical motive, modulation and repetition, helped to underscore the meanings of Lyte’s poetry. Lyte’s fourth

7 The circumstances and details of Lytes’s words and Monk’s tune have been discussed at some length by Bradley in The Daily Telegraph Book of Hymns (Coninuum: London, 2005), 8-12.

170 line is further accentuated by Monk’s use of a descending musical motif to the final cadence in E flat. This is subtly hinted at in the same opening motive of line one (which in verse one accompanies the very same words) and the consequent material (from B flat to G enhanced by a momentary rise to C).

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me. (H. F. Lyte) Ex. 4: EVENTIDE (Monk)

171

In line two the descending motive is contradicted by a rising motive, a gesture which is mirrored by the subsequent modulation to the dominant which further duplicates the rising motive at the cadence in B flat major. Line one is then repeated at the beginning of line three but the consequent modulation to the supertonic minor (F minor), creating an imagery of isolation and despair. But similarly, as in lines one and two, the final line begins with a rising motive (poignantly marked by the dominant seventh in last inversion) but is this time strongly and directly contradicted by the return of the falling motive and the final cadence. All in all, the tune reveals not only a thoughtful portrayal of the text but also a tight-knit thematic construction.

Of a more expansive structure, with a 10.10.10.10.10.10 metre, is UNDE

ET MEMORES, using William Bright’s fine intercessory words for Holy

Communion, ‘And now, O Father, mindful of the love’. The general harmonic tenor of this tune is, as with the others mentioned above, strikingly simple in terms of consonant harmony. The melody modulates only once at the end of line four (to the dominant), but this modulation, sensitively positioned, provides a springboard for the melodic climax in line five – ‘the only Offering perfect in thine eyes’ – up to the high E flat. By contrast, the first three lines, restrained in register, retain a hesitant, meditative air which contributes to the powerfully intimate atmosphere in keeping with Bright’s repetitive yet flexible lines of ten syllables and with the Tractarian preoccupation with the

172 sense of ‘presence’ and ‘mystery’. In fact, while Monk’s tune is strongly nineteenth century in contour and harmony, its phraseological flexibility has an affinity with melody of the sixteenth century for which Monk had a peculiar interest, and it is significant that Gibbons’s SONG 24 should also have found a home with Bright’s words in the future. Monk’s love of early music and early hymns is undoubtedly reflected in his adaptations of early hymn-writers such as Crüger (probably the most significant chorale composer of his age) as well as early French melodies such as GRAFTON.

However, Monk was especially adept at creating his own Victorian forms of older melodies to Tractarian words.

And now, O Father, mindful of the love That bought us, once for all, on Calvary’s Tree, And having with us Him that pleads above, We here present, we here spread forth to Thee

173 That only Offering perfect in Thine eyes, That one true, pure, immortal Sacrifice. (W. Bright) Ex. 5: UNDE ET MEMORES (Monk)

Monk clearly revelled in the business of adaptation which is evidenced by the tune VICTORY, a reworking of Palestrina’s Gloria from his Magnificat Terti

Toni of 1591. Once again, Monk’s adaptation is to simplify the rhythm for congregational singing (though less radically than with UNDE ET

MEMORES), and to be more suited to Francis Pott’s translation from his

Hymns fitted to the order of Common Prayer of 1861 (‘The strife is o’er, the battle done’). Perhaps most significant here is Monk’s addition of his own refrain at the end of each verse, but even more marked his proclamatory opening statement of three .

We have already noted two examples of Tractarian influence affecting the development of the hymn-tune during the early part of the nineteenth century. One example centred on the small chapel in Margaret Street near Oxford Circus where the

Tractarian Oakeley and his organist Redhead officiated ecclesiastically and musically in a cautious and restrained religious style, whilst the other focus of Tractarian influence was with the new hymn book and in the person of Monk, also a strongly committed Tractarian, appointed to the committee for Hymns Ancient and Modern as its musical adjudicator and editor.

As was expected, Tractarian issues related to the buildings, worship, ritual and also the composition of the hymn-tunes in the purity of the ‘sublime musical idiom’ through a cautious use of chords, harmonies, modulations etc., often came up for

174 discussion and debate as the deluge of hymn- tunes eager to be accepted into the new hymn book increased. It was so important that the Tractarian ethos be maintained in the midst of other competing musical forces, but whilst it was difficult always to keep within the restraints of what was regarded as ‘divine’ music, a developing artistry and form was gradually evolving in spite of the caution urged by Gauntlett who counselled a careful distinction between what was regarded as religious and what was secular.8 However, a third notable and more colourful influence was also being felt in the development of the

Tractarian hymn-tune, namely the use of the organ both in cathedral and parish church.

After all, whilst the music of the cathedral did, to a degree, set the style of worship in the first phase in the Victorian period, and was naturally copied by the local parish church, the use of the technologically more advanced organ, with its several manuals, extended pedal boards, selection of stops, detached key boards, all able to interact through the newly developed use of pneumatic action, provided just the important musical link between the expanded choir and congregation in the regular worship of the Church.

Certainly the church organ could not only duplicate harmonies of the hymn tune, tie over repeated notes, support hymn verses in quiet as well as in loud dramatic mode through the swell pedals and manuals, but support choral as well as congregational singing to create a newer ethos of ‘performance’, novel to the liturgy. As Temperley has remarked:

The function of the organ in accompanying the choir was far more than that of regulating the pitch and providing harmony for solo passages. It was the indispensable agent in turning parish worship into the ‘artistic experience. As Curwen put it,. ‘the real value of the organ when properly used, is that it floods the building with sound

8 Temperley, 248-249. 9 Ibid., 311.

175 To a significant extent, the role of Redhead and Gauntlett, as organists, was important in establishing this link between the hymn and its executants, but in the following discussion, the organ and the professional composer became ever more inextricably linked as part of the evolving art form of the Tractarian hymn. , organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, and mentor to John Stainer, was, like Redhead, Elvey and

Gauntlett, a composer with eighteenth-century roots in terms of training and stylistic outlook, as is evident from his tune BEVAN and his well known adaptation, BEDE, of the duet ‘Cease thy anguish’ from Mendelssohn’s Athalia. His work of revision and harmonization of the hymns and chants for William Mercer’s Church Psalter and Hymn

Book (1855) was exemplary, and was a model for Monk and HA&M. PRAISE MY SOUL, on the other hand is just such a tune which brought the organ to the forefront of hymn composition and which, with its demonstration of harmonic dexterity (both in terms of individual chromatic harmonies as well as modulations) was undoubtedly a model for others with the re-harmonisation and re-scoring of each verse. Goss had a particular liking for the Tractarian propensity for refrains (as can be seen in his most famous carol

HUMILITY to Caswall’s memorable words, ‘See amid the winter’s snow’) and Lyte’s words with their concluding acclamation ‘Praise Him! Praise Him!’ (or sometimes sung as

‘Alleluia’) which clearly acted as musical motive for the hymn tune as a whole:

176

Praise my soul, the King of Heaven, To His feet thy tribute bring; Ransom’d, heal’d, restored, forgiven, Evermore His praises sing; Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise the everlasting King. (H. F. Lyte) Ex. 6: PRAISE MY SOUL (Goss)

This art of re-harmonisation, however, seems to have been associated most closely with

Henry Smart. As well as being a hymn-tune composer and throughout his life, organist in five different churches (beginning with the Parish Church of Blackburn (1831-1836) and ending with St Pancras’ Church (1865-1879), he was also an authority on the instrument providing specifications for organs and in particular the organ at City Hall and St

Andrew’s Hall in Glasgow and the Town Hall, Leeds. Even more important, however, was

Smart’s reputation as an extemporisor, a skill which drew audiences to St Pancras Church in London. At St Pancras, Smart had to contend with Weldon Champneys who emanated from a low-church, Evangelical tradition. Smart, who agitated for full choral services ran into difficulties with Champneys who frowned on the notion of the ‘spectating’

177 congregation. As a compromise, Smart, adopting Dutch and German practices, sought to vary his harmonies in conjunction with the changing texts of the hymns’ verses while the congregation sang in unison (a practice that had already found print in his A choral book, containing a selection of tunes employed in the English Church [c. 1855]).10 Smart’s skill was not only diligently applied to extemporary parts of the liturgy where the organ was required for the purposes of choreography and the amplification of the service music and responses, but also to verses in the hymns, especially the last verse which often acted as a musical ‘peroration.’ Such practices of last verses, richly re-harmonised and sung in unison resound into our own century.

Of Smart’s many hymn tunes, written for different hymnaries, and many of them still very popular, there are those which one could single out as retaining the traditional four-square, conservative structure and which display a blandness in their musical artistry. MOSELEY, for instance, composed for Edward Harland’s words for the young and for Sunday Evening entitled, ‘And now this holy day is drawing to its end’. It is a simply- worded hymn thanking God for rest, for the Church, for the Scriptures and Gospel message, and a prayer that all these blessings will be truly appropriated by his children.

The tune somewhat unremarkably begins with a rising phrase which descends to the dominant in the second line, platitudinous musical events underlined by the generally uniform rhythmic tenor of the hymn.

The third line, however, using a descending line no doubt to express the approach of dusk and descent of evening, does not attempt to pause at the end of the third line but carries on, with its musical ‘enjambement’ to conclude with a standard cadential 6/4 - 5/3 resolution in semibreves (slowing down the pace) again and ending in the tonic. This is a feature of greater interest, but the general effect of words and music is uninspiring.

10 Ibid., 274.See also Smart, H. (see Temperley, 385).

178

And now this holy day Is drawing to its end. Once more, to Thee, O Lord, Our thanks and prayers we send. (E. Harland) Ex. 7: MOSELEY (H. Smart)

Similarly the tune ST. LEONARD, set to Jane Taylor’s words for the young, ‘Lord I would own Thy tender care’, published in English Presbyterian Psalms and Hymns for Public

Worship, 1867, and a third tune, TRISAGION (meaning Thrice holy) to Neale’s Greek translation of St Joseph, ‘Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright’ (and written for the

Feast of St Michael and All Angels’) remain constrained within a traditional framework.

However, though small in detail, it is important to note Smart’s injection (in small notes) at the end of the third line of a part (for the pedals) exclusively for the organ – a musical idea, incidentally which echoes the triadic ascent of the melody line and bass line in line three as, perhaps, a projection of the ‘Trisagion’ concept (which is continued by the bass line in line four). This practice would become more and more common in later hymns, especially those of Dykes and Stainer.

179

Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright, Fill’d with celestial virtue and light, These that, where night never followeth day, Raise the ‚Trisagion‛ ever and aye: (J. M. Neale, from the Greek) Ex. 8: TRISAGION (Smart)

In Smart’s tune REGENT SQUARE, couched in a muscular C. Major to the words ‘Light’s abode celestial Salem’, from the writings of Thomas a Kempis, (Hymns Chiefly Medieval on the Joys and Glories of Paradise, 1865), and translated by Neale, one finds work of different quality which is not only robust and solid in its structure and metric formula of 8

7.8 7. 8 7., but with punctuated dotted chords at apposite musical moments attempts to match and visualise in human terms a picture of heaven. The strident opening of the chords and progressions of the second bar clearly mimic the well known gestures of a brass fanfare, and this gestural material, with its characteristic dotted rhythms, is motivic throughout the tune (e. g. line three and line five). The larger tonal structure may again be simple, conservative and essentially consonant, but the last two lines with their emphatic dotted chords, and the subdominant inflection, direct the music and words i.e. ‘how glorious’, ‘all is pure’, ’no night’, ‘full of vigour’ ‘everlasting glory’ ‘Consubstantial, Co- eternal’, to the highest note (on the supertonic chord), before descending to rest again in

180 the tonic. It is truly a majestic hymn with the minimum of chromatic variation but undoubtedly lends itself to organ accompaniment and a populous choir and congregation, notably in the last ‘Trinitarian’ verse where the possibility for variant harmonies plentifully exists.

Light’s abode, celestial Salem, Vision whence true peace doth spring, Brighter than the heart can fancy, Mansion of the Highest King; Oh, how glorious are the praises Which of thee the prophets sing! (J. M. Neale: from Thomas à Kempis) Ex. 9: REGENT SQUARE (Smart)

Perhaps the most significant factor in the hymn tunes of Monk, and perhaps even more so in those of Smart (both of whom, incidentally, emanated from different branches of the Tractarian movement), is that both men’s hymns reflected an important departure in the evolution of the genre as an artistic entity. As Temperley has pointed out, the

same motivation that had caused the mushrooming of fully choral services’ now served to support the more ambitious aims of a genre once considered lowly and perfunctory. Now the focus of a hymn was gradually moving into the arena of performance in which all could play an important role whether by

181 large choirs, enthusiastic congregations or organists. Hymns were now becoming more dramatic vehicles of religious expression, and the corporate sense of experience was enhanced by the richer aura of singing in harmony, and by the increasingly melodic orientation of not just the upper part but the accompanying ones in addition. Moreover, even the traditional mechanics of the hymn were subtly changing. The former manner of harmonising a tune, of setting each syllable to an individual chord, was now subject to major revision. Harmony and harmonic movement could establish an independence from the old stricture of syllables and wedded harmonies. Instead, congregations and choirs would sing one note (or occasionally more) to a syllable, but the composer of the music was completely free to treat these notes as passing notes, appoggiaturas and suspensions as well as the traditional consonant variety; indeed, one syllable might be accompanied by a variety of changing harmonies of both the diatonic and chromatic kind. Often, this tune was central to the hymn’s memorability and ‘singability’, but in effect it constituted only one part of the overall composition in which other parts vitally contributed as well as the extemporary organ.11

The sum of all these parts meant, more crucially, that the Victorian hymn began to enter a new and more essentially Romantic phase of expression, where not only the words of contemporary Tractarian poets was seminal to the genre’s contemporaneity, but also, more critically, the music. Indeed, the fact that many Victorian organists began to take the hymn seriously as a creative form, and also accepted editorships of hymn-books (during the burgeoning industry of the mid- nineteenth century), perhaps inevitably led to the incorporation of secular musical forces, whether in the domains of harmony, melody and genres (such as song, oratorio and partsong). Besides the hymn being a vehicle for sacred performance, it began to take on the ethos of an emotional expression and experience which, from its sacred distance,

11 Temperley, 305.

182 attempted to look into the soul of man and into the Christian sacramental life as a musico-poetical instrument.

Potent examples of this new, emerging art form can be seen in the hymns of

Ouseley, E. J. Hopkins, A. H. Brown, Herbert Oakeley and Scholefield. Ouseley, Professor of Music at Oxford University, derived much of his conservatism from his forebear,

William Crotch, whose own aesthetic parameters, the ‘sublime’, the ‘ornamental’ and the

‘beautiful’ were drawn from the writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Crotch’s views of music, which strayed little from eighteenth-century classicism, was hopelessly anachronistic and served to hold Ouseley back as a composer of large-scale works. His cleaving to Crotch’s outlook even drew criticism from his greatest and closest pupil, John Stainer. However,

Ouseley was by no means oblivious to the Romantic aspirations of ecclesiological neo-

Gothic architecture, as can be seen in Woodyer’s design of St Michael’s College, Tenbury, which Ouseley, a broad churchman, though one fully immersed in Tractarianism and indeed high-church ritual (having been a at St Barnabas, Pimlico during the riots in

1850), had built as his ‘model’ for the performance of church music in 1856.

Moreover, Ouseley’s special interest in musical antiquarianism (which gave rise over the years to one of the finest private musical libraries in Britain) could produce intensely atmospheric evocations. Ellerton’s text for , ‘Throned upon the awful Tree’, is an apposite response in its dirge-like monotones, to the poet’s portrayal of

Christ’s inner anguish as he is led to the cross; indeed, Ellerton’s verse conveys that sense of the pilgrim’s devout journey, step by step (or knee by knee along the via dolorosa) to the site of Golgotha:

183

Throned upon the awful Tree, King of grief, I watch with Thee; Darkness Thine anguish’d Face, None its lines of woe can trace, None can tell what pangs unknown Hold Thee silent and alone. (J. Ellerton) Ex. 10: GETHSEMANE (Ouseley)

Ouseley’s ‘death march’ encapsulates many elements typical of the later Tractarian style of hymn that one might find in Dykes or Stainer. Here the melody, though an important feature, is less important than the harmonic one. Instead, choir and congregation would have been conscious of the stepwise recitations on a monotone for each line, rising over a restricted range of a minor sixth, ‘intoned’ briefly by the solemn unison on beat one. The sequential relationship of lines one and two with lines three and four would also have been obvious to singers unfamiliar with this ‘dramatic’ style of hymn, as would the antiquarian cadences of lines four (self-consciously Phrygian) and six. Yet Ouseley also injects moments of pure nineteenth-century emotionalism into the harmony. The falling dissonant bass of lines one and (especially) three is very telling, as are the dissonant seventh chords in the last inversion in lines two and four. And, to underline Temperley’s point about melodic suspensions, those in lines two and four (9-8) provide an ‘impression’

184 of Christ’s agony to match Ellerton’s germane vocabulary of ‘awful’ and ‘woe’. But perhaps most effective in Ouseley’s masterly vision is the entirely unexpected modulation to the submediant (C major) at the highest point before descending stepwise to the final cadence, throwing the quintessential sentiment of Ellerton’s poem – the ‘pangs unknown’

– into relief. In addition to GETHSEMANE, Ouseley could also produce settings which were largely dominated by melody alone. Here the sense of gratitude of ‘divine blessing’ for a human life lived in God’s care and safety (the stages of life, as articulated through the sacraments being a concept close to Tractarian hearts), is expressed by Ouseley in

CONTEMPLATION, where a song-like melody of reaches its climax through a passing modulation to the subdominant (the D natural is especially affecting), while the two main cadences retain a sense of comfort and reassurance through the luxuriant movement of the inner parts.

When all Thy mercies, O my God My rising soul surveys Transported with the view, I’m lost In wonder, love, and praise. (J. Addison) Ex. 11: CONTEMPLATION (Ouseley)

185 Though broad churchmen such as Ouseley responded to the mushrooming quantity of Tractarian poetry, it was men of largely high church background who contributed to the rich core of hymnody during the middle of the nineteenth century. E. J.

Hopkins was, like Monk, a devotee of plainchant and early music, and his expertise on organ building was reflected in his major article for the first edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. His interest in the hymn, besides composing many himself, is demonstrated by his role as editor for hymn books, most of them for the non-conformist traditions of the Wesleyan, Congregational and Presbyterian Churches of England and

Canada. Hopkins’ hymn tunes present a fascinating transition in the art of the hymn. In one sense they reveal a conservative direction in terms of melodic movement and rhythm

(in this sense he resembles Monk). But his conservative melodic contours are enriched by unexpected diatonic and chromatic harmonies which often provide an affecting commentary on the words. The fourth line of ST RAPHAEL (to J. J. Cummins’ evocation of the human condition, ‘Jesus, Lord of life and glory’) is one such chromatic instance as is the third line of SHROPSHIRE (using a translation by W. J. Copeland of ‘Jesu, salvator seaculi’), and the setting of Heber’s ‘Brightest and best of the sons of the morning’ to

EPIPHANY, with its strong modulations, (especially that to the mediant minor in the penultimate line) and feminine cadences, provides a colourful undercurrent to Heber’s characteristic admixture of description and moralising. Hopkins’ response to other

Tractarian verse also seems to have excited his capacity for a more Romantic flight of fancy. CULFORD (to Bright’s ‘Thou the Christ for ever one’) begins unremarkably,12 but in the final lines to each verse, where Bright epigrammatically reminds us of the part played by the Jews and the Old Testament in Christian history, and of Jesus’s lineage, Hopkins underpins the poet’s rhetorical statements with an unexpected chromatic shift away from the relative minor (A minor) to the dominant seventh (in last inversion) of F:

12 This tune also appeared in HA&M to Baker’s ‘Jesus, for the beacon light’.

186

Thou, The Christ for ever one, Mary’s Child and Israel’s God, Daniel’s Prince and David’s Son, Jacob’s Star and Jesse’s Rod, Thou in Whom their words came true, Hear the pleading prayer we make, Hear the Gentile for the Jew! (W. Bright) Ex. 12: conclusion of CULFORD (Hopkins)

Hopkins’ liking for chromaticism is evident in unassuming tunes such as ST HUGH.

When first published in the Congregational Hymn and Tune Book it appeared with

William Cowper’s ‘There is a fountain filled with blood’, but later it was wedded to the didactic words of Montgomery (from his Christian Psalmist of 1825), full of penitence and moral outrage (he was an outspoken abolitionist of slavery and an arch political liberal), find an unexpectedly close marriage with the quasi-turbulent progressions of Hopkins’ third line (which passes through C minor, A flat and B flat, before returning to the tonic, E flat). But Hopkins seems to have a found a particular musical resonance with the words of

John Ellerton whose own interest in the furtherance of the hymn as spiritual edification for congregations, cannot be underestimated. Perhaps one of the classics of the Anglican hymn literature is ELLERS (or sometimes known as BENEDICTION), a text which the author wrote for the Malpas, Middlewich and Nantwich Choral Association in 1866. The key to this hymn, which is often sung as a valedictory piece or one for evening prayer, centres on the Tractarian theme of human life and experience, and life’s end in the ‘peace of Christ’ (the word ‘peace’ is virtually a leitmotiv throughout the poem).

187 Originally the tune by Hopkins was written for voices in unison and organ in a manner emulating the practice of Smart, but a four-part choir version was also produced by the composer. The hymn first appeared in HA&M in 1868, though it was also included in the Appendix to the Bradford Tune Book (1874), Allon’s Congregational Psalmist (1875) and Sullivan’s Church Hymns (1874) where the different harmonisation is reputed to be by

Sullivan.13

13 Hopkins’ harmonisations for unison voices and organ, as well as the four-part choir version appear in his Complete Hymns published in 1901 published by Weekes & Co., London (see No. 83 and 83a).

188

150 Hopkins’ first harmonisation seems elusively simple. Of the four lines, only one modulates (to the dominant) to suggest perhaps, the sense of the ‘parting hymn of praise’ or ‘darkness into light’; the others remain couched in the tonic. Yet Hopkins nevertheless provides a yearning song-like melody and touches such as the suspension on V7c in line one (with its affecting moving inner part for tenor) the dominant ninth in line two, the falling dissonant bass of line three, and the simple harmonies of the melodic descent in line four are all factors in the restrained yet deeply emotional expressive power of this work:

Saviour, again to Thy dear Name we raise With one accord our parting hymn of praise; We stand to bless Thee ere our worship cease; Then, lowly kneeling, wait Thy word of peace. (J. Ellerton) Ex. 13a: ELLERS (Hopkins)

In later verses of this tune, however, Hopkins shows his harmonic imagination and dexterity with aplomb. The second verse, for example, reveals an arresting chromatic variation in the first line (note the progression ‘up-on’ which moves from VIIb in D to diminished seventh on E flat), a transitional modulation through E minor in line two

(which intensifies the modulation to the dominant at the end of the line) and a telling

cli subdominant move in the last line (which Sullivan no doubt later gleaned) together with a further ‘substitute’ diminished seventh for V of V:

Grant us Thy peace upon our homeward way; With Thee began, with Thee shall end the day; Guard Thou the lips from sin, the hearts from shame, That in this house have called upon Thy name.

Ex 13b: ELLERS (verse 2) (Hopkins)

The analogies of ‘light and darkness’ and ‘day and night’ are especially prominent in

Ellerton’s poem and the intensification of these polarities become more marked in

Hopkins’s harmonisations. In verse three he introduces a diminished seventh (substitute

V) prior to the modulation to the dominant (‘darkness into light’), and highlights the element of ‘danger’ with a further diminished seventh in line three, but is in the last line, with the chromatic bass line that ‘dark and light’ are most textually conspicuous:

clii

Grant us Thy peace, Lord, through the coming night, Turn Thou for us its darkness into light; From harm and danger keep Thy children free, For dark and light are both alike to Thee.

Ex. 13c: ELLERS (verse 3) (Hopkins)

The last verse of Ellerton’s poem provides the ‘working out’ of the polarities of his former verses, in that ‘darkness and light’ and ‘day and night’ find an explication in the calming of earthly conflict in eternal peace. Hopkins’ more elaborate organ accompaniment makes further use of the chromatic enrichment of earlier verses but, in addition to the speeding up of his harmonic rhythm, also introduces a more contrapuntal dimension to his part- writing, which, on the one hand stresses the element of ‘conflict’, but, with the last line, provides that ultimate sense of tranquillity which is even palpable in the ‘chromatic’

‘Amen’.

cliii

Grant us Thy peace throughout our earthly life, Our balm in sorrow, and our stay in strife Then, when Thy voice shall bid our conflict cease, Call us, O Lord, to Thine eternal peace. Amen.

Ex. 13d: ELLERS (verse 4) (Hopkins)

In Church Hymns, the tune (cast in A flat major) appears (reputedly in an arrangement by

Sullivan, though it is not actually attributed to him) in an even more elaborate version where the harmony builds further on Hopkins’ version in his last verse and which intensifies that sense of yearning valediction through enriched modulation. Note, particularly, the passing harmonies (V7c and II7b) in line one, the unusual ‘passing’ dissonant harmonies of lines one and two; the modulation to F minor in line two which then recurs at the end of line three in first inversion (and which requires resolution in line four), the affecting alto and tenor ‘inner parts’ in line three, and the subdominant colour in line four. With this added detail, the hymn is a truly romantic expressive entity reflecting

Ellerton’s ‘balm in sorrow’ and ‘call to peace’:

cliv

Ex. 14: ELLERS arr. Sullivan (Church Hymns)

Hopkins must have been pleased with his creation for ARTAVIA, written for Jean

Ingelow’s ‘And didst Thou love the race that loved not Thee’ (from her Poems of 1860), covers similar ground both melodically and harmonically. But again it is to Ellerton’s text, used for the feast day of St Simon and St Jude (‘Thou who sentest thy apostles’), that

Hopkins’ harmonic nuances bring a sense of pathos and solemnity in the last two lines.

NUKAPU, written for the

clv

And didst Thou love the race that loved not Thee? And didst Thou take to Heaven a human brow? Dost plead with man’s voice by the marvellous sea? Art Thou his Kinsman now? (J. Ingelow) Ex. 15: ARTAVIA (Hopkins)

1875 revised edition of HA&M, is precisely an example of how the Victorian hymn had modernised to incorporate dissonance within the melody. Here, Hopkins provides a sequence (a topos established in the first line) of poignant dissonances through suspensions and seventh chords which amplifies the sense of emotionalism, as can be witnessed in moments such as line three, and most notably in line seven:

clvi Thou Who sentest Thine Apostles Two and two before Thy Face, Partners in the night of toiling, Heirs together of Thy grace, Throned at length, their labours ended, Each in his appointed place; (J. Ellerton) Ex. 16: NUKAPU (Hopkins)

The melodic invention of a tune such as Ouseley’s CONTEMPLATION and the harmonic, indeed dissonant, intensity of Hopkins’ art was paralleled by other contemporary hymn- writers, notably Oakeley, Scholefield and Brown. Scholefield’s ST CLEMENT (a tune

Bradley has suggested may have been written by Sullivan), largely diatonic, overtly pursues the ‘song’ dimension with a melody that has remained potent to this day. The expressive intervals of this melody (the opening major sixth in particular), the musical enjambement between lines one and two as well as three and four (which functions beautifully in verses three and four), the repetition of lines one and three, the more luxuriant part-writing, and the yearning sentiment of the final line with its inbuilt sequence and conspicuous tenor line, provide a pastoral yet active evocation of Ellerton’s poem for the evening, notably in sentiments such as ‘the voice of prayer is never silent’ and the ever-moving ‘cosmic’ adoration of church ‘unsleeping’ couched in a romantic melancholy that all, including ‘earth’s proud empire’ will pass away before God’s parousia:

clvii

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended, The darkness falls at Thy behest; To Thee our morning hymns ascended, Thy praise shall sanctify our rest. (J. Ellerton) Ex. 17: ST CLEMENT (Scholefield)

The same sense of melodic pathos can be found in A. H. Brown’s SAFFRON WALDEN.

Brown’s tune, regarded during Victorian times as the classic setting of Charlotte Elliott’s text ‘Just as I am’, with its epigrammatic refrain (‘O Lamb of God, I come’), possesses in its contours that longing for peace, healing, physical wholeness and salvation bound within the ‘honesty’ of man’s sinful condition, especially in its thoroughly memorable suspension in the first (‘without one plea’), a melodic movement enhanced by the converse movement of the tenor line. Moreover, the supplicatory sentiment of the third, with its wilting downward phrase (‘And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee’) is further enriched by the modulation to the subdominant and the ‘comforting’ texture of the inner parts, while the refrain, with its converging of parts, seems to act as a perfect ‘summing up’ of wistful song:

clviii

Just as I am, without one plea But that Thy Blood was shed for me, And that thou bid’st me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. (C. Elliott) Ex. 18: SAFFRON WALDEN (Brown)

Smart’s tune, MISERICORDIA, though lacking Brown’s emotional intensity, nevertheless captures something of Elliott’s vulnerability, not least in the same triple metre, a similar opening melodic contour, and a nicely crafted upward phrase in the enjambement to the refrain (incorporating some effective chromaticism into the bargain).

While these examples exhibit the more conspicuous influence of the song within the new expressive model of the hymn, the harmonic dimension promoted by Smart and

Hopkins can also be seen in the hymns of another high-churchman composer, Herbert

Oakeley. His tune DOMINICA deliberately promotes the sentiment of ‘light’, and latterly

‘rest’, ‘peace’, ‘prayer’ and the ‘first of days’ (i.e. Sunday) with a striking modulation to the relative minor (the first line half-closing on the dominant):

clix

This is the day of light: Let there be light to-day; Day-spring, rise upon our night, And chase its gloom away. (J. Ellerton) Ex. 19: DOMINICA (Oakeley)

Moreover, Oakeley’s tune EDINA, underpinning Godfrey Thring’s progressive pilgrimage of the Christian (replete with strong references to nature and vivid picturesqueness) to his heavenly reward, provides a significant role for the organ in the use of pedal points, and the arresting use of the submediant major (B major), itself incorporating a pedal point, suggests that the composer understood the high point of the verse as line six (‘all we hope to be’). Furthermore, the recovery from B major, back to G, gives the final two lines an additional sense of positive resolution:

clx

Saviour, Blessèd Saviour, Listen whilst we sing, Hearts and voices raising Praises to our King; All we have we offer; All we hope to be, Body, soul, and spirit, All we yield to Thee. (G. Thring) Ex. 20: EDINA (Oakeley)

These final examples provide potent evidence that both verse and hymn tune were in progressive mode in which the hymn as genre was undergoing a major expressive metamorphosis. More importantly, the hymn had become an artistic object of romantic expression for its Tractarian authors, which, when married to a musical language increasingly influenced by the music of the secular world, the expansion of the organ and the choir, became an entity in which its religious and emotional effects amounted to more than the sum of its individual parts. In this way it would reach a climax in the catalogue of

clxi hymns produced by John Bacchus Dykes. As Temperley has suggested, it was Dykes who spearheaded the ‘acculturation of the hymn’ in his experiments with the genre.

CHAPTER FIVE

Revd John Bacchus Dykes (1823-76)

Tractarian Hymnodist par excellence

‘Dykes’s popular acclaim was elicited by the effect on congregations of music that seemed to express the sentiments of differing hymns, so that few of his tunes can be used as ‘portmanteau’ tunes to go with more than one hymn’

(J. B. Hutchings ‘Dykes, Priest and Musician’)

5.1 Introduction

If, as we have seen in Chapter Four, the Tractarian hymn-tune, once limited to a simple melody with a perfunctory four-square accompaniment assisting congregational voices within limited parameters, set up almost to idealise it as the sublime medium to express the music of Christian worship, with later hymn-tune composers, the hymn became an object of artistic artifice where influences – such as romanticism - from outside the ecclesiastical establishment, secular colouring from genres such as song, partsong and dance were steadily assimilated. Nevertheless despite attempts from some of the more conservative ecclesiastical and musical hierarchy to keep a firm hold of the reins of hymn-tune composers, in an effort to preserve sacred music

clxii from secular encroachment,1 cracks in the dam wall (if I may be permitted to use the analogy) were soon evident and the musical tell-tale signs in hymn- tunes referred to above were being used by contemporary composers, influenced not only by J. S. Bach but also Mendelssohn, Weber, Schumann,

Chopin, Spohr, Gounod and even Wagner.

With the initiative of Tractarianism, [later to be called the Oxford

Movement], when in fact the dam wall did burst, it was natural that

Tractarian leaders such as Newman, Keble, Pusey and others would bring their own theological tools, gifts, rituals and expertise from university, college and church alike, and architects in pursuit of their architectural interests in the Gothic style for nineteenth-century churches, were keen to join in too!

Seen within this larger context, it was inevitable, however much the church might have tried to resist reform, that every aspect of its existence would be changed. For the Tractarians much of the change came in the form of liturgy, ritual, pastoral care, teaching and pedagogy, and an important alteration in the church’s relationship with humanity, the world and the cosmos. As has been noted in Chapter One, this new religious environment nurtured a new attitude towards art as vehicle of spirituality which was happy to espouse the thoughts and ideas of romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Browning,

Tennyson and Coleridge which was enormously influential of generations of

1Bridges, R., ‘Practical Discourse on some Principles of Hymn-Singing’, cited in Bradley, 205. Also see Bradley 150 on secular involvement of Hymn-tune composers Barnby and Sullivan.

clxiii religious poets who enthusiastically embraced the Tractarian movement, notably figures such as Ellerton, Caswall, Elliott, Chatterton Dix, Bridges, and

Thring. These men and women may not have been considered as the mountain peaks of literature, and are not by today’s standing; nevertheless it is important to appreciate, as Bradley has pointed out, that hymn-writing as poetry was a normal and well-established occupation, professional for some, amateur for others; in fact in many quarters it was considered a high form of art as well as a vocation, something that is an entirely foreign phenomenon today.2

Similarly church musicians sympathetic to the reforms of the

Tractarians, such as Redhead, Monk, Gauntlett and Hopkins, were no less keen and enthusiastic to ‘rise on the crest of the wave’ bringing their musical perceptions to the genre, partly because of the burgeoning industry of hymn- writing and publishing but also because of their own awareness of the musical romantic movement. The latter question is one of utmost importance in the understanding and evaluation of the Victorian hymn, but even more so for the Tractarian species of it. One perception of church music reform had been to embrace Gregorian chant and early music, notably the music of

Palestrina, Gibbons and others of the sixteenth century, and in many ways followed the inclinations of the continental Cecilians to eschew modern

2 See Bradley, I., Abide with Me (SCM Press: London, 1997), 81.

clxiv musical tendencies in favour of a more puritanically driven aesthetic of ‘pure church music’.3

Yet, for others, the wave of romantic music and its innovations, albeit tempered to suit the ecclesiastical environment, was irresistible, and here too the dam wall came under irrevocable pressure. This is evident in the significant musical developments outlined in Chapter Four, but the fullest expression of this Tractarian chemistry of romantic poetry and music is enunciated in the unique contribution to the hymn genre by John Bacchus

Dykes, (1823-1876). Born in Hull, East Yorkshire and though not a professional organist, Dykes learned the musical arts and techniques of orchestra, choir, harmony, counterpoint and composition at Cambridge

University under the tutelage of , at that time

Professor of Music. At the university, though he pursued studies in classics, he exercised a good deal of his time in the formation of a musical society. His abilities as a horn player and violinist led him to take an active interest in the formation of a university orchestra and he was President of the Peterhouse

Music Society from 1846-7. More importantly, however, Dykes was central to the inauguration of the Cambridge University Musical Society, a fact acknowledged in 1893 when the Society celebrated its 50th birthday under the leadership of Charles Villiers Stanford. In fact, Dykes’s musical education at

3 Scholes, P., ‘The Cecilian Movement’ in The Oxford Companion to Music, ( Oxford University Press: London, 1938),149.

clxv Cambridge cannot and should not be underestimated. Though his future career in the Church shaped his life and outlook, music always remained a vital element within his personality. He knew many of the major English musicians of his day. Besides Walmisley at Cambridge (who died tragically young in 1855), he was well acquainted with Ouseley at Oxford and Hereford, and regular visits to the Three Choirs Festivals brought him into contact with

Sullivan and S. S. Wesley, and later, as part of the committee for the 1875 edition of HA&M, he came to Monk and Stainer. Furthermore, we should also note that Dykes’s knowledge of the musical repertoire must have been considerable. As an able pianist, he must have known works by Beethoven,

Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin; moreover, his abilities as a horn player and violinist caused him to be involved, at least as a student, in the performance of orchestral works by the aforementioned composers. It is also likely that his natural musical inquisitiveness led him to be acquainted with the earlier works of Liszt and Wagner. Though this will always remain a matter of conjecture, it is clear that Dykes benefited much from his early training and was ready to assimilate much of what was harmonically contemporary around him, and from anthems and service music he produced for Durham Cathedral, it is clear that besides those continental innovations, he was also ready to absorb the diatonic experiments of S. S. Wesley.

The son of a banker and grandson of a well-known Evangelical clergyman, Dykes became Curate in Malton, Yorkshire, following his

clxvi ordination, before accepting the post of minor Canon and Precentor at

Durham Cathedral, a position he held for thirteen years before becoming

Vicar of St. Oswald’s Church, Durham, 1862 where he spent the rest of his life.

He was certainly venerated by John Stainer whom we shall refer to in our next section. Stainer always admired Dykes and as Dibble has remarked,

‘remained unapologetic in his admiration for Dykes’s hymnody at a time when fashion was beginning to expurgate his ‘High Victorian’ tunes from new hymnals. Indeed, time has shown, with the recognition of Dykes as one of the greatest of all hymnodists, that Stainer’s veneration was well founded’.4

One certainly values Stainer’s true valuation of any hymn-tune quite apart from how others including St. or St Augustine may have tried to define it in antiquity when he says:

The true estimate of a hymn-tune cannot be found by principles of abstract criticism, or by an internal evidence that it exhibits an artist’s handicraft. There is something indefinable and intangible, which can render a hymn-tune, not only a winning musical melody, but also a most powerful evangeliser.5

Dyke’s hymn- tunes were certainly ‘winners’ but as he himself comments, they were carefully planned and worked out, closely wedded to the poetic verse and, as far as the composer was concerned, were touched by Divine realities. Dykes himself comments:

I never think of setting a hymn that is worthily set, that would be silly caprice, or vanity or presumption. But if a hymn does not appear to be worthily set, then I own, I am often induced, I may say, sometimes almost compelled, to try to do my best for it

4 Dibble, 314. 5 Stainer, J., Hymn Tunes (Novello & Co.: London, 1900), iii.

clxvii set to music (by whomsoever God wills to select for that purpose) that its power of influencing and teaching may be best brought out’.6

There is no doubt that between the years 1860 and 1900, the name of Dykes figures prominently where hymn books of all Christian denominations are concerned. Bradley, making reference to Dykes’s hymnodic style, with its chromatic harmonies and part-song parallels, provides the following evaluation of the hybrid nature of the composer’s art:

No one better epitomizes the distinctive musical style of Victorian hymnody, with its lush chromatic harmonies, heavy use of repeated notes and stationary basses, close affinity to part song and parlour ballad and dramatic use of mood and melody to heighten the emotional and spiritual impact of the words. As we have already noted, Erik Routley regarded Dykes’ DOMINUS REGIT ME as in many ways the archetypal Victorian hymn tune. Nicholas Temperley includes five of Dyke’s tunes among the fourteen that he selects as representing ‘the high Victorian hymn-tune’ in the second volume of his classic work The Music of the English Parish Church and C. H. Philips describes Dykes’ work as ‘the type par excellence of the Victorian hymn tune’.7

In fact it was Temperley who described Dykes as ‘the archetypal

Tractarian’ hymn-writer. In other words, what Dykes brought to the hymn was not only a wealth of new repertoire which enriched HA&M for its first three editions (1861, 1868 and 1875), but brought to the hymn a transformation of the genre in which so many different factors (namely those exploring tonal, melodic, harmonic and contrapuntal areas) came together to produce a highly ‘unified’ artistic entity in which many of the values entailed in the composition of large-scale music (notably factors such as motivic concentration and organic growth) are part of the process of hymn composition. This, and of course drawing from a wide range of Tractarian

6 Fowler, J. T., The Life and Letters of Revd John Bacchus Dykes, Vicar of St. Oswald’s Durham (John Murray: London, 1897), 42. 7 Bradley, 145.

clxviii poetical sources, produced a corpus of work which must surely stand as some of the finest work of its kind (and which can be examined in Hymn Tunes, published posthumously by Novello in 1902 (and whose production was technically overseen by Stainer before his own death in 1901).

5.2 First successes

Though the name of John Bacchus Dykes is closely associated with HA&M, he did in fact begin the composition of hymns some years earlier, and though we do not know exact dates of individual tunes, we can ascertain to a degree when they were written by the publication date of individual hymnals such as the Congregational Church Music (1853), Grey’s Hymnal (1857), the Hymnal

Companion (1858), Church Hymns (1858) and the Parish Church Hymnal (1858).

We can further ascertain that the process of Dykes’s musical development as a hymn-tune composer was gradual and that it observably evolved between

1853 and the publication of tunes for the first edition of HA&M. As far as the texts of the hymns are concerned, however, it is clear that the attraction to

Tractarian poets was well established from the outset.

In terms of musical development the 41 tunes published between 1853 and 1861, Dykes reveals that he underwent a personal examination of the expressive powers of music in relation to the words. Tunes such as ST

OSWALD and ST AGNES, both included in Grey’s Hymnal, reveal a modicum

clxix of artistry in their use of repetition in lines one and three, though in terms of their musical invention, neither tune is especially distinguished in terms of melody or harmony. Nor, for example, in ST NINIAN which sets ‘Brightest and best are the sons of the morning’, set by Hopkins and others in a more inventive fashion. This may also be said of RUTLAND, which, barring the unusual 7.7.7 metre and the three-line structure of the poem, musically the setting is banal. It is also evident from scrutiny of many of these earlier tunes that Dykes was coming to terms with certain types of melodic structure.

Numerous tunes complete their second line falling from the fifth degree of the scale to the third (HODNET is a prime example, as is, in a slightly different guise, MAGDALEN), while the central section of the tunes often employs some form of musical sequence. Other paradigms include a tonal shift to the dominant of the relative as a variant harmonisation of the opening line. Some tunes are evidently prophetic of tunes for which Dykes would later become famous. RUTLAND anticipates STRENGTH AND STAY, HODNET, in its opening line, looks forward to HOLLINGSIDE, and within the embryonic chromaticisms of ST. EDMUND is the germ of MELITA. But other tunes already show, particularly by the late 1850s, Dykes unusual flair for structure and harmony, and, moreover, his preference for Tractarian poets. LUX VERA and DISMISSAL, for example, reveal Dykes ability to set unusual metres.

LUX VERA, with its 10.6.10.6. scheme, begins unusually with three anacruses as part of its extended first and third lines, while DISMISSAL (8.7.8.7.4.7.)

clxx begins with two anacruses, and the fifth line, of four syllables, provides an unusual ‘suffix’ to the final line. More particular to DISMISSAL, however, is the demonstration of a more motivic cohesion in the first four lines. The first two anacruses articulate a major third, which, in the answering second line, is

Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing; Fill our hearts with joy and peace: Let us each, Thy love possessing, Triumph in redeeming grace; O refresh us, Travelling through life’s wilderness. (Dr Fawcett) Ex. 1: DISMISSAL expanded to a fifth. This same pattern is repeated in lines three and four, but this time in the minor mode; here Dykes’s harmony takes on a richer apparel, notably with the use of II7d at the end of the third line.

clxxi MIZPAH, a hymn for New Year’s Day, utilises an even more unusual metre of 5.5.5.11. D in which the line of 11 syllables palpably disrupts the

‘security’ of the 5.5.5 pattern. Furthermore, Dykes’s tune accommodates not one but two verses of Charles Wesley’s poem ‘Come let us anew Our journey pursue’ to create a more extended musical structure, imbued with his characteristic rhythmic sequences in the second half of the tune. In addition to MIZPAH, another tune, ECCE AGNUS (with another unusual metre

6.6.6.4.8.8.4) begins in quadruple metre before switching to triple metre. A

Passion hymn (Matthew Bridges’ ‘Behold the Lamb of God!), is prophetic in its pseudo- modal archaisms of ST CROSS (in the same key), but like several of Dykes’s later tunes, the second part moves to the tonic major, emphasising the theological move from darkness to light, and to vindication and hope, looking forward to hymns such as VOX DILECTI.

clxxii

Come, let us anew Our journey pursue, Roll round with the year, And never stand still till the Master appear.

His adorable will Let us gladly fulfil, And our talents improve, By the patience of hope, and the labour of love.

(C. Wesley) Ex. 2 MIZPAH

A comparable design can be found in SOUTHFLEET, a setting of F. D.

Hemans’s ‘Lowly and solemn be’ for the Passion, where two lines of six

clxxiii syllables are answered by a short line of 4 and repeated. But more interesting is Dykes’s response to the scansion of the poem in which the musical nature of the melodic contour and its unusual syncopated rhythm (in lines three and six) provide particular emphasis to the words. But of greatest significance among these earlier tunes is the emergence of Dykes’s instinct for harmonic effect and how this dimension so often complemented the emotional nature of the melody. ETIAM ET MIHI, which employs another unusual metre of

8.7.8.7.3. (whose refrain ‘Even me’ makes use of a highly unusual

Lord, I hear of showers of blessing Thou art scatt’ring full and free; Showers, the thirsty land refreshing; Let some droppings fall on me – Even me. (Elizabeth Codner) Ex. 3 ETIAM ET MIHI

clxxiv syncopation), gains its intensity from Dykes’s use of secondary sevenths, notably the use of IV7d in bar two, and VI7d at the beginning of the third line, though it is in deeply affecting downward curve of line three, supported by a prolonged V7d, that the composer achieves his desired emotional affect. In

MAGDALEN he reveals a sensitivity to Neale’s translation of the Lenten ‘O

Maker of the world’ with the use of double suspensions (in the soprano and alto) in the last line. PARATE VIAM, for G. P. Joyce’s Advent hymn ‘O Lord

Jesu, at Thy coming’ provides that essential sense of expectancy in the fifth line of the 8.7.8.7. double metre by the use of a chromatic bass line. However this chromatic mindset is reflected in all the accompany parts as part of a richer harmonic pattern which includes a sequence of four ‘insistent’ repetitions in the soprano. All these tunes provide some potent indication of

Dykes’s art that was to emerge in the tunes for HA&M, but perhaps the tune that anticipates this most is VIA CRUCIS written for the Congregational

Psalmist of 1858. A. A. Proctor’s poem ‘The way is long and dreary’ seems to draw on Longfellow’s ‘The rainy day’ (published in his Ballads and Other

Poems of 1842), which is particularly apparent in the opening lines.8 But together with this paraphrase, Proctor combines lines from the ‘Agnus Dei’ and concludes each verse with the supplicatory refrain ‘Have mercy upon us’

(the final conclusion being ‘Give us Thy Peace’). In response, Dykes, who

8 Longfellow’s poem opens with ‘The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains and the wind is never weary;’ C.F Proctor’s ‘The way is long and dreary’, The path is bleak and bare; Our feet are worn and weary, but we will not despair’;

clxxv clearly saw this penitential poem for the Passion as a deeply personal experience, used a highly variegated harmonic backdrop to express the sense of bleakness and despair. The opening of the hymn is surprisingly familiar in the guise of two other well-known tunes, (‘O Jesus I have promised’) and

(‘Fair waved the golden corn’); Dykes’s creation, however, is infinitely more sophisticated. The first line, which initially seems conventional enough

(though note the rising counterpoint of line two), undergoes marked variation in its repetition in lines three and four where Dykes includes a thoroughly effective enjambement between the lines cemented by the modulation to the submediant (C minor). The effect of despair and anguish is accentuated by the modulation to the supertonic (F minor), enhanced by the movement of the parts (notably the alto and tenor) in line five, and Dykes almost quotes

Schumann in the ‘poetical’ progressions of line six (note in particular the passing minor II7d). But it is with the ‘Agnus’ quotation of the second part of the hymn that Dykes seems almost to transcend the hymn genre. The original movement of minims is extinguished in favour of a texture that is more reminiscent of partsong or even anthem. With the statement of ‘O Lamb of

God’, the tenor becomes articulate, not least with his poignant 9-8 suspension and modulation to the subdominant, answered by the soprano’s appoggiatura and the chromatic underparts of alto, tenor and bass. And as if this was not enough to subvert the sense of ‘hymn’, the last section seems to gather pace melodically and rhythmically as it works up to the climax on the top E flat of

clxxvi the last line, marked so romantically by the cadentially prolonged 6/4 and by the passing augmented sixth (‘the world away’).

clxxvii The way is long and dreary, The path is bleak and bare; Our feet are worn and weary, But we will not despair; More heavy was Thy burthen, More desolate Thy way; - O Lamb of God, Who takest The sin of the world away, Have mercy upon us. (A. A. Proctor) Ex. 4: VIA CRUCIS

With the publication of HA&M in 1861, Dykes’s name became a household word with the enormous popularity of a handful of tunes, a popularity which owed much to the broad range of Christian life and pilgrimage (which hearkened back to Keble’s Christian Year) and covered such

Tractarian theological tenets as marriage, pastoral care, the sea (and its concomitant dangers), personal holiness, confession and the transitory nature of life (and the passing of time), but also to the intrinsic musical merit of the compositions and their evocations of the texts involved.

Undoubtedly one of Dykes’s immutable creations was NICAEA which sets Heber’s ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty’. Here the imagery of the book of Revelation is evident mixed with ideas drawn, as Watson comments, from ‘notions of the Sublime found in eighteenth-century and Romantic theory’.9 Burke’s association of the Sublime with obscurity is exactly represented in ‘Though the darkness hide Thee’; ‘there is none beside Thee’

9 Watson, 324.

clxxviii and the ecstatic tone of the hymn, found in its rhythms, repetitions, and threefold (Trinitarian) statements, is also associated with symbols of late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Romanticism as Watson has argued:

Heber has produced a hymn in which the normal processes of human sin are acknowledged but transcended in worship and praise. It turns hymnody into a kind of mantra, with ‘Holy, holy, holy’! as a spell, much as Coleridge has used it in Aids to Reflection, where he attacked Descartes as one who ‘instead of a World created and filled with productive forces by the Almighty Fiat, left a lifeless Machine whirled about by the dust of its own Grinding: as if death could come from the living Fountain of Life; Nothingness and Phantom from the Plenitude of Reality! The Absoluteness of Creative Will! Holy! Holy! Holy!10

Dykes’s musical response was to create a rising melody through the tonic triad which, besides being emblematic of the Trinity (mentioned at the end of the first verse, and no doubt responsible for the hymn’s name), was also representative of priestly and congregational prayerful levitation.

Interestingly, the consequent part of Dykes’s opening phrase is, to be honest, of limited merit, but instead, interest is transferred to the rising inner parts of the alto and tenor, accentuating the fact that Dykes conceived hymn tunes not only for congregational participation but for a choir of numerous voices, eager, as Temperley has emphasised, for ‘performance’ within the liturgy.11

After this musical interjection from the inner parts, the melody is transferred again to the soprano for an ‘optimistic’ modulation ‘rising’ to the

10 Ibid., 324-5. 11 Temperley, 304 & 309.

clxxix dominant in concordance with Heber’s ‘our song shall rise to Thee’. The process is repeated in line three, with the final climax reserved for ‘God in three persons’. Here Dykes’s musical resources are in fact deftly simple. He relies strongly on diatonic harmonies and a simple tonal plan derived largely from the metrical psalms of earlier centuries (having much in common, indeed, with Redhead’s tunes), but it is the detail and manner of the composition which is profoundly nineteenth-century. Elements such as the contrapuntal dimension are obvious, but others such as the ‘mantra-like’ opening of ‘Holy, holy, holy’ (with its strong connotations with the Sanctus and Eucharist) must have seemed new to congregations and choirs of the time.

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!

clxxx Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee: Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty! God in Three Persons, Blessèd Trinity! (Bishop Heber) Ex. 5: NICAEA

Similar in manner to NICAEA was ST CROSS, a setting of Faber’s text ‘O come and mourn with me a while’. Doleful in mood, Dykes’s tune responds with apposite solemnity in D minor and the final line, sung in unison, appears to ape a style of chant. In fact, Hutchings noted that this tune evoked the ambience of Gibbons, and certainly the opening progressions of the tune share a similarity with SONG 44 (often sung to Welsey’s ‘Forth in thy name O

Lord I go’). In spite of this ‘archaic’ proclivity, however, Dykes’s nineteenth- century harmonic zeal is clearly apparent in, for example, bar 3 with the dissonance of soprano and tenor (e.g. beat 3) and it is also evident in the use of secondary seventh harmonies in bar 4 (beat 3) and bar 10; moreover, like

NICAEA, Dykes’s liking for colourful part-writing is reflected in the rising tenor part of bar 6. And, in addition, the solemnity of the hymn receives accentuation in the last line with its marked unisons from tonic to dominant.

This telling interval accompanies Faber’s refrain to five of his six verses –

‘Jesus, our Lord, is crucified’ – symbolic surely of looking up at the cross. It is this gesture, significantly, that stands out in Parry’s adaptation of it as a chorale prelude in which the hymn is transformed into a funeral march or cortège.

clxxxi

O come and mourn with me awhile; O come, ye to the Saviour’s side; O come, together let us mourn; Jesus, our Lord, is crucified. (F. W. Faber) Ex. 6: ST CROSS

ST CROSS is a hymn very much associated with Passiontide, and

Dykes’s collected hymns amply illustrate the strongly Tractarian purpose of his hymn-writing, i.e. that his hymns were, like those of Keble before him, intended for an ordered calendrical year, full of sacramental symbolism and connotations. Similarly, ST CUTHBERT focuses our attention on Whitsuntide with the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost and the birth of the Church. Harriet

Auber’s now famous lyric, ‘Our Blest Redeemer, ere he breathed’, from her

Spirit of the Psalms of 1829, singles out in the first line of each verse, the

clxxxii essential attributes of the third person of the Trinity (‘Redeemer’, ‘influence’,

‘voice’, ‘virtue’ and ‘purity and grace’). Moreover, Auber’s lyric once again provides an example of that irregular metre – 8.6.8.4 – which so many

Tractarian hymn composers favoured, in which the final line, in its refrain- like brevity, functions as a suitable epigram (‘With us to dwell’, ‘Wherein to rest’, ‘And speaks of heaven’ etc) enhanced by the dotted semibreve (‘With us to dwell’). Dykes’s tune seems, at its outset, to emulate the simplicity of

Redhead in the uncomplicated melody line and the I-IV-I harmonisation (see

ST PRISCA in Chapter Four), and the continuation in line two appears to confirm this. However, with lines three and four, Dykes once again shows his ingenuity in modification of the sequence, starting on the mediant, enriching the third line with more colourful harmony and allowing the third line to run on directly into the ‘refrain’,12 as if in fact lines three and four are but one line.

While ST CROSS and ST CUTHBERT are typical of hymns composed for the church calendar, HOLLINGSIDE and HORBURY are more personal to

Dykes autobiographically, and are also more inward in their sacramental symbolism, a factor increasingly important to the more ritualist constituency of Anglo-Catholicism (to which the Catholic practice of the seven sacraments

12 Dykes also facilitates this enjambment by the avoidance of root position harmonies, opting instead for a first inversion at the close of line three.

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Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed His tender last farewell, A Guide, a Comforter, bequeathed With us to dwell. (H. Auber) Ex. 7: ST CUTHBERT was the accepted format). HOLLINGSIDE, though included in Dykes’s collected hymns as one for general use (and named after the cottage where he resided as Precentor of Durham Cathedral),13 is a hymn particularly appropriate for marriage. Charles Wesley’s poem ‘Jesu, lover of my soul’ parallels the Christian relationship to Christ with the bond of man and woman. Indeed, Dykes saw the hymn as being closely connected with his own marriage to Susan King in 1850.14 The structure of Wesley’s words is regular (Eight 7s). Dykes’s musical structure, while made up of regular phrases, has some surprises. Line one is repeated in line three, melodically,

13 Hollingside now forms part of the residence of the Vice Chancellor of Durham University. 14 Bradley, 146.

clxxxiv but the harmonisations are markedly different. The first time we cadence simply in the tonic; the second time we move, more arrestingly, to the dominant of the relative (C minor) which, with its lack of tonal resolution, requires completion with line four. Line five is coloured by the subdominant, and its melodic shape is partly an expansion of the opening third motive, yet also an inversion of the rise stepwise, while the conclusions to lines five and six (which are both left incomplete on their respective dominants) echo the downward motion of lines one and three; and to end the hymn, the final two lines repeat those of lines three and four. As part of this tight thematic and tonal structure, there are several instances of Dykes’s harmonic ingenuity. As was mentioned in Chapter Four, regarding the advance in harmonic accompaniment, Dykes is more than ready to use dissonant harmonies to accentuate his melodic lines. The secondary eleventh (on chord II – on ‘of’) in line one is just such a harmony that totally subverts the older tendency of consonant harmonies with every syllable, and the passing dissonances in lines two (on ‘me’) and six (on ‘the’) is another.

HORBURY, a setting of Sarah Adams’s ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’, also had a deep personal meaning for Dykes. According to Fowler, Dykes visited his friend the Revd. John Sharp on 1 June 1859 in the parish of Horbury in

Yorkshire. Having already learned of the death of his brother, George Dykes in Wakefield, Dykes was ready to make his first confession at Horbury, and the composition was the product of these experiences. Adams’s poem

clxxxv encapsulates and balances those negative sentiments of a ‘believer’s pilgrimage’ – the conflict and darkness (see verse two) – with those of a more positive nature (notably in verses three and four). Dykes’s response, though characteristically full of musical artifice, was outwardly lyrical, as if he was composing a song (influenced by the continental lieder tradition).15 In fact, the opening line of the tune is distinctly Schubertian, especially with its poignant appoggiatura on ‘God’. There are numerous

Jesu, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the gathering waters roll, While the tempest still is high:

15 This lyrical connection seems almost to be confirmed by the fourth line of the first verse of Adams’ poems: ‘Still all my song shall be’.

clxxxvi Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, Till the storm of life be past; Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last. (C. Wesley) Ex. 8: HOLLINGSIDE examples of this opening gesture in Schubert’s songs, and one such example can be seen in his setting of Klopstock’s ‘Selma und Selmar’. This type of appoggiatura is common to many of Dykes’s hymns, such as EXSPECTO and

PAX DEI, and in a tune such as ST LEONARD, the unprepared dissonance takes the form of a double appoggiatura.

Ex. 9: ‘Selma und Selmar’ (Schubert)

Dykes makes great play on this seminal gesture and it proves to be fundamental to much of the melodic and harmonic structure of the hymn, in keeping with Adams’s carefully constructed verse (with its interesting

6.4.6.4.6.6.4 metre) with refrain (‘Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee’).

In fact one senses that there is a very symbiotic musical and textual relationship in this outstanding composition in which the last three lines

clxxxvii effectively function not only as a one textual entity but as a musical one as well. Dykes’s opening melodic line, with its affecting appoggiatura, accentuates the words ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’, and this phrase is rounded off by a further repetition and reduction of the same text (‘Nearer to Thee’) in the shorter second line (both lines will become the refrain). Such repetition gives the ambience of quiet prayer, or even the rosary, strongly associated with the sacrament of confession. The opening two lines remain closely wedded to the tonic, emphasised in line one by the persistent bass tonic pedal. In the ‘darker’ lines three and four, which, in verse one, contemplate the cross and the resurrection (and in verses two, three and four, to

‘darkness’, ‘mercy’ and ‘grief’), Dykes develops his initial ideas, first by

Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee; E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me, Still all my song shall be,

clxxxviii Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee. (Sarah F. Adams) Ex 10: HORBURY reworking his opening line through the submediant and mediant (indeed repeating the falling phrase of B flat to G but altering the mode – note the A natural) before modulating to G minor with a repeat of line two, also modally modified. Such subtleties reveal just how much the composer’s legerdemain had developed. As a consequent gesture to this process of sequence and development, Dykes’s fifth line brings an even greater surprise with its passing subdominant colour. From the opening tonic chord of the phrase, we suddenly move up melodically to D flat which is itself accompanied by a D flat harmony as IV of A flat (the subdominant) before moving back onto the

6/4 on the dominant of E flat. This dominant is then resolved by a return to the music of the opening two lines, but with an intensely felt difference.

Instead of the pedal point of the first two bars, Dykes creates a passing modulation to the subdominant (surely making reference to the tonal behaviour of line five) and gives much greater emphasis to the original appoggiatura by this time anticipating it as a ninth suspension, and supporting harmonically by a root position harmony of chord IV (a technique which is even more conspicuously Schubertian). Such intensity was surely provided to suggest a deeper sense of supplication. Furthermore, this refrain

clxxxix provides a resolution to line five as part of a continuous musical line implied by the poetry.

While HORBURY was conceived in the context of the sacrament of confession, MELITA brings into play the concept of the Trinity and the nautical image of the sea. Indeed, this interpolation for the church’s calendar was typical of Tractarian innovations, not least because the sea and mariners played such a vital part in Britain’s industrial and imperial infrastructure.

Ministering to seamen became a powerful part of the church’s mission, not only in terms of religious promulgation but also the ‘celebration’ acknowledged the dangers of the profession, of those lost at sea and the unpredictability of the storm and waves. William Whiting’s words embody the centrality of the Trinity (note the openings of each verse) and personifies each part of the Trinity and its metaphorical symbolism in terms of the sea, its strength, anger, power and nature’s (often unforeseen) ebb and flow. Dykes’s tune, universally associated with these words, has become an international

‘anthem’ for mariners, but it is also associated with the military,

Remembrance Sunday, and even such occasions as the funeral of John F.

Kennedy. The tune contains numerous musical motives that clearly depict nautical images. Besides its obvious sense of dignity, the tune’s fanfare-like opening of the melody and the subsequent rising passage in thirds for tenor and bass embody the movement of the waves. The fluctuation of major (at the end of line two) and minor (line four) provides not only contrast but injects a

cxc powerful feeling of confidence juxtaposed with menacing apprehension. But it is in the extraordinary chromatic topos of the third and fifth lines, evoking the turbulence of the sea, that the tune derives its greatest originality and effect. The chromatic sequence in line three travels through bass line from B to

D chromatically, and the sequence continues (by means of the progression

V7b – I) to carry the bass line all the way to its climactic octave at the end of line four, which also articulates a modulation to the mediant minor. It is with

Dykes’s magnificent and gradual recovery to the tonic that is the miracle of his creation. From the mediant (E minor) Dykes juxtaposes, with great impact, the dominant of F, and then sequentially develops the progression of V7-I in F to V7-I in G. This rising motion re-echoes that of lines four and five, but this time the tonal outcome is one of resolution to the tonic key by means of

Dykes’s favourite device of the 6/4.

The six hymns discussed above detail the unusual and distinctive sense of ‘craft’ that Dykes was bringing to the art of hymnody. Indeed one could say that he was, through agency of romantic Tractarian poetry, transforming the hymn into a poetic art form, in which, in miniature – indeed in microcosm

– many of those elements common to secular romantic music were included, both extrinsic and intrinsic. With the last of his contribution to HA&M of 1861,

cxci

Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep; O hear us when we cry to Thee For those in peril on the sea. (W. Whiting) Ex. 11 MELITA

Dykes’s two settings for the Burial of the Dead were both to W. J.

Irons’s translation ‘Day of Wrath! O day of mourning!’; the first, for HA&M is arguably the finer. The poem, which expresses many disturbing elements of the apocalypse from the Book of Revelation, chimed with Dykes’s own homiletics but perhaps hearkened back to his early pre-Tractarian days in an

Evangelical household in Hull where the more Arminian subjective sentiments of judgment, personal salvation and the imminent kingdom of

God were imperative tenets of religious life. Irons’s poem, in many ways, offers rather more than the traditional self-contained Tractarian poem in its

cxcii eschatological contemplation of judgment and retribution, anguish, forgiveness and mercy,

cxciii

cxciv (v. 1) Day of Wrath! O day of mourning! See fulfilled the prophets’ warning! Heaven and earth in ashes burning! Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth When from Heaven the Judge descendeth, On Whose sentence all dependeth.

(v. 8) With Thy favoured sheep O place me, Nor among the goats abase me, But to Thy right hand upraise me, While the wicked are confounded, Doomed to flames of woe unbounded, Call me with Thy Saints surrounded.

(v. 9) Low, I kneel, with heart-submission, See, like ashes, my contrition; Help me in my last condition, Ah! that day of tears and mourning! From the dust of earth returning Man from judgment must prepare him; Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!

(v. 10) Lord all pitying, Jesu Blest, Grant them Thine eternal rest. Amen.

(W. J. Irons, translation) Ex. 12: DIES IRAE NO. 1

Irons provides a narrative in which the outcome of judgment may be sainthood or damnation – though the power of infinite mercy is clearly evident in the final tenth verse (‘Lord all pitying, Jesu Blest, Grant them Thine eternal rest.’). Dykes’s response was to produce a hymn, but, in depicting the contrast of moods and ideas, he extended the concept of the hymn into a genre more readily approaching that of a ‘hymn-anthem’. For the first seven verses he provided what appears to be a conventional hymn, i.e. a repeat of the same music in D minor. Within each verse, however, Dykes set each of

cxcv Irons’s verses, with a metre of six 8s with his usual artistry. The first line in D minor contrasts with the outcome of the second in D major, though this is in turn the dominant of G minor and provides a musical enjambement into line three. Lines five and six, which evoke proclamation and majesty, move to B flat major (the submediant) and much of the syllabic emphasis (e.g. ‘fear’ and

‘Heaven’) is placed on suspensions, while the final line, gains its accentuation

(‘On Whose sentence all dependeth!’) from the melody’s repeated high Ds and octave interval and the protracted cadence using an expressive dominant minor thirteenth. With the arrival of verse eight, Dykes changes mode to the major and gives us a variation of the original material in D minor, now in the major mode. This gives rise to a number of interesting harmonic changes

(such as the alteration of the bass line at the end of line one on the 6/4 and the dominant seventh of G at the end of line two). The last three lines of the verse are, however, quite different from the original material in B flat. Instead

Dykes presents a foreboding picture of damnation back in D minor using unison octaves and a descending phrase from high D to low D through an unusual and deliberately ‘severe’ Phrygian scale, but concludes with a celestial modulation to G major, re-interpreting the extended cadence of line six as heard in verses one to seven. For verse nine, D minor and the original music is resumed, but in a more penitent mood (Dykes’s use of dynamics within the composition are vital); moreover, in lines five and six the melody is transferred, fauxbourden-like, to the tenor, while, for the final line, in octaves

cxcvi (again accentuating the sentiment of judgment with its fanfare of tonic and dominant), the organ becomes prominent as the means of harmonic support and emphasis (note especially the chromaticism, the use of the augmented sixth and the climatic 6/4). With this climax on the 6/4 of D major, the music subsides as if it were almost the conclusion of a dramatic phase of a cantata or oratorio. The last verse, verse ten, derives its impact not only from its ‘pp’ dynamic, but also from its function as resolution of the pregnant dominant at the end of verse nine (‘Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!’). The verse also takes the form of a suppliant praying for deliverance. Here Dykes aptly doubles the time to semibreves, slowing the pacing of harmonic change markedly, and with romantic legerdemain, the penitential mood of ‘Lord all pitying, Jesu Blest’, he gives us an emotional phrase worthy of Schubert (and recalling the same sensibility of HORBURY). And to conclude, the expanded harmonic motion (replete with dominant major thirteenth), broadens the final cadence and coda to what has proved to be a dramatic and emotional entity.

The seven tunes for the first edition of HA&M set an important precedent in terms of their use and combination of individual techniques and innovations and after 1861 we witness an enormous flourishing of Dykes’s art as a hymn-writer. Many of the hymns included in his posthumously published collection edition reveal an extraordinary fertility of ideas and approaches to interesting and unusual poetry, and many of them suggest that

Dykes was not simply interested in writing traditional or conventional hymns

cxcvii tunes; rather, he was captivated by the notion of developing the genre within the context of nineteenth-century romanticism and, more so, in the matter of allowing the hymn to be influenced by secular genres such as partsong, song and even ‘chorus’ (as one might find in a cantata or oratorio). LUX VERA, a general hymn in later hymn books (setting William Bright’s ‘Still throned in heav’n to men in unbelief’), though assigned to the ‘evening’ in the collected edition (to E. W. Eddis’s translation ‘O brightness of the immortal Father’s

Face’). In terms of musical language and gesture, this tune looks back to the simplicity of ST CROSS and the legacy of Redhead with its uncomplicated diatonicism. Yet, the metre of the poem, 10.6.10.6. is unusual which provoked the composer to produce musical phrases for lines one and three with three initial anacruses (which balance the three notes at the end of the phrase).

Dykes had a particular liking for this unconventional opening and repeated it in his two settings of FOR ALL THE SAINTS and ENDEL which both set

How’s famous words (and foreshadow later settings by Stanford in

ENGELBERG and Vaughan Williams in SINE NOMINE) and in

COMMENDIATO (a wonderful setting of an 11.10.11.10 metre). Another unusual opening gambit that Dykes utilised for poetic reasons was the declamatory opening of COME UNTO ME, a setting of William Chatterton

cxcviii

O Brightness of the Immortal Father’s Face, Most Holy, Heavenly, Bless’d, Lord Jesus Christ, in whom His truth and grace Are visibly express’d.

(E. W. Eddis, translation) Ex. 13: LUX VERA

‘Come unto Me, ye weary’ (with a strong emphasis on the word ‘Come’), which begins with unison men’s voices accompanied by the organ as if it was a passage of choral recitative in an anthem by S. S. Wesley. (Dykes was to repeat this declamatory manner in VOX DILECTI with its opening statement for unison choir and organ – see below). Similarly, the opening of LUX

BENIGNA, one of Dykes most frequently sung tunes and a setting of

Newman’s well know text ‘Lead, kindly Light’, opens with a triple upbeat to accompany these very words.

LUX VERA is a fine example of Dykes’s gifts as a melodist; yet, as we know, from examples such as NICAEA, the melody for Dykes was only one

cxcix part of a wider matrix of components. In particular, emphasis in NICAEA was placed in the inner parts of the hymn, notably the alto and tenor, a feature which also accentuated the fact that Dykes’s tunes were written with the sound of a sonorous and confident choir in mind. RIVAULX, a setting of

Edward Cooper’s text for the Trinity ‘Father of heaven, Whose love profound’. Here the melodic emphasis exists in the first, second and last lines, the second line containing a particularly affecting fall of the seventh, while harmony (again using Dykes’s favoured mechanism of sequence) inhabits the third line where alto is especially active.

Father of heaven, Whose love profound, A ransom for our souls hath found, Before Thy throne we sinners bend, To us Thy pardoning love extend.

cc (E. Cooper) Ex. 14: RIVAULX

RIVAULX is an interesting example of a ‘partial’ combination of

Dykes’s techniques, but in PAX DEI, which uses Ellerton’s well known text

‘Saviour again to thy dear Name we raise’ (set so effectively by Hopkins- see above), we find an almost total assimilation of melodic writing and harmonic imagination. The opening suspension of line one recalls the sound of

HORBURY (a gesture Dykes was to repeat many times in other tunes), and the consequent second line, with its passing modulation to F sharp minor is a splendid reworking of the first line. The third line, using sequence, is memorable for its chromatic progressions replete with colourful secondary sevenths, while the final line, with its affecting downward octave, re-echoes the extended cadence of the first line. By comparison with Hopkins’s setting of this text (see ELLERS), Dykes’s conception of the tune is much richer, not only in harmonic content and modulation, but also in terms of the artifice – phrase and rhythm, melodic contour, cadence and part-writing – where

Hopkins is more uniform and restrained (though in the harmonisation by

Sullivan, less so).

cci

Saviour, again to Thy dear name we raise With one accord our parting hymn of praise; We stand to bless Thee ere our worship cease; Then, lowly kneeling, wait Thy word of peace.

(J. Ellerton) Ex. 15: PAX DEI

A prominent innovation of several of Dykes’s later hymns was the sense of narrative within each verse. This was invariably expressed through a change of mode from the minor to the major, often to convey a sense of triumph over evil. One such hymn is ST ANDREW OF CRETE, an impressive interpretation of Neale’s translation from the Greek ‘Christian, dost thou see

ccii them’, intended for penitential contemplation during Lent. In fact the hymn takes much of its inspiration from the Old Testament and the story of Gideon and the Judges and their defeat by the desert-dwellers, the Midianites (Judges

Ch. 6-9:17). The impending defeat of the Israelites adds to the sense of urgency of the Christian’s faith, as evil attempts to undermine it. Musically this feeling of foreboding is conveyed by a melodic monotone (and conspicuous rests) which is decisively declamatory (in both lines one and two) and, again, might be construed as a passage from a choral work or anthem. The active parts are reserved for the alto and tenor parts in line one, and alto and bass in line two; while, in line three, anguished emotion at the pending fate of the Israelites is evoked by the restless counterpoint, particularly of the tenor line, and the double suspension on the approach to the dominant. Moreover, the broader impression of doom is expressed by the deliberate harnessing of the Phrygian cadence at the end of line four. In direct contrast, lines five to eight expunge the conjunct melodic movement in favour of wider intervals (e.g. the clarion call of victory in line five) couched in the major mode and with musical rhetoric that could have been paraphrased from a Handel oratorio.

cciii

Christian, dost thou see them On the holy ground, How the troops of Midian Prowl and prowl around? Christian, up and smite them, Counting gain and loss; Smite them by the merit Of the holy Cross.

(J. M. Neale, translation) Ex. 16: ST ANDREW OF CRETE

Dykes repeated this same formula in his setting of Bonar’s ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’, VOX DILECTI. Here the narrative speaks of the sinner’s lost condition, his sense of sadness, unworthiness and weakness, and of

cciv Christ’s compassion and invitation in restoration of the individual. Each verse begins with a declamatory unison statement for choir in G minor, concluding in line four with an unresolved dominant. The second part of the hymn then launches into G major, and, with its more spacious intervals, crotchet movement and expansion of tessitura (with the climactic peak on V of A), exudes a powerful air of confidence.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‚Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, thou weary one, lay down Thy head upon My Breast:‛ I came to Jesus as I was, Weary, and worn, and sad; I found in Him a resting-place, And He has made me glad.

(H. Bonar) Ex. 17: VOX DILECTI

ccv A further narrative, using this same model, can be found in ST JOHN (after St

John the Baptist’s acknowledgement of Christ), where Matthew Bridges’ poem, with its bizarre metre, 6.6.6.4.8.8.4., begins with a declamatory statement (‘Behold the Lamb of God!’) in quadruple metre before yielding to triple metre and a quasi-modal passage in D minor. In turn D minor yields to

D major for the last three lines of each verse (replete with a final-line refrain of four syllables – e. g. ‘Thy pierced Side’) as an expression of substitutionary sacrifice.

The importance of the organ in Dykes’s tunes has already been commented upon in DIES IRAE NO. 1. In the later tunes Dykes was often moved to enrich his harmonies with additional notes for the organ (which can be frequently observed as small notation). In tunes such as COME UNTO ME and VOX DILECTI, where unison passages are conspicuous and used for purposes of ‘dramatic’ declamation, the organ is naturally vital to proceedings. Moreover, as was seen in DIES IRAE NO. 1, the organ’s presence often became prominent with additional harmonic colour. Use of augmented sixth chords and diminished harmonies are often used in this context. In PAX

(setting of Henry Baker’s poem ‘in time of war’), the use of unison voices with organ arguably reaches its epitome with a sequence of highly chromatic harmonies – note in particular the use of minor IVb before the dominant of B flat, and the chord of minor II7c as examples of Dykes, in a truly romantic idiom, ‘mixes’ his modes. This harmonic diffuseness provides a vivid contrast

ccvi to the C minor opening of the tune and provides ample expression of ‘man’s sinful wrath’, while the conclusion – a refrain ‘Give peace, O God, give peace again’ – is set in the relative major, E flat, in a lyrical more redolent once again of Schubert (with the characteristic suspension and melodic arch). PAX is also a fine example of another of Dykes’s techniques, that of beginning in one key and ending in another.

O God of love, O King of peace, Make wars throughout the world to cease; The wrath of sinful man restrain, Give peace, O God, give peace again.

(H. W. Baker) Ex. 18: PAX

Besides being drawn to unusual poetical metres, Dykes was also attracted by the conflation of and hymn as genre. In DYKES, a

ccvii setting of Neale’s ‘The strain upraise’ (which Sullivan was to set with such aplomb in Church Hymns), the structure of the hymn is to chant freely all lines of text, and sing the ‘Alleluia’ refrains within a quadruple metre. EASTER

CHANT, by contrast, which sets Neale’s translation ‘Light’s glittering morn bedecks the sky’, requires free chanting in the manner of Anglican chant for its first three lines, before the last line ‘stabilises’ the piece with more standard metric delivery. This manner of chanting combined with four-part harmony, one favoured of course by the Ecclesiologists, was also used in Dykes’s settings of the Litanies and it was a formula emulated by Stainer in his setting of ‘Hail, gladdening light’ (SEBASTE).

Light’s glittering morn bedecks the sky: Heaven thunders forth its victor-cry; The glad earth shouts her tríumph high, And groaning hell makes wild reply;

(J. M. Neale, translation)

Ex. 19: EASTER CHANT

ccviii Dykes’s conflation of Anglican chant with the hymn was only one of several hybridisations of the hymn. Another, which he clearly found highly amenable to his setting of Tractarian texts was the partsong which had already gained some considerable currency as a genre in the mid- nineteenth century in

England. The partsong, like the hymn, tended to enjoy a uniformity of texture. Essentially homophonic, the genre was dominated by the melody in the soprano; but perhaps more elaborate was the dimension of word-painting, and, from time to time, the movement and decoration of the other parts. Of course we are already familiar with the fact that Dykes was prone to elaborate the inner parts of his hymns, so that an extension of the hymn towards partsong was, for him, a natural digression. Dykes’s complete hymns contain numerous examples of this conflation of genres. Perhaps the most frequently sung was his setting of Newman’s ‘Lead, kindly light’. Here Dykes gives emphasis to the opening words of Newman’s poem with the three anacrustic crotchets marked with accents, yet in the setting of the first line, with its ten syllabic feet, Dykes, in accordance with the sense of ‘encircling gloom’ undermines any sense of triple metre. Instead one feels only the steady advance of a form of ‘free’ prose. This is assuaged only by the response of the second line ‘Lead Thou me on’ which is in regular metre, yet even here, the uncertainty is underlined by the imperfect cadence. Line three repeats the same metrical ambiguity (echoing the ‘darkness’ and remoteness) before line four finally anchors us in the tonic together with two bars of unambiguous

ccix triple metre. In fact, the ‘restless’ role of lines one and three become clearer with the last two lines of the hymn which are metrically more stable; moreover, as an indication of just how intricate Dykes’s skill had become, he distils the music of lines three and four into the music of the last line which functions as a more confident apotheosis to the verse.

Though less metrically ambiguous than LUX BENIGNA, VENI CITO is a fine example of the melodically-dominated genre of the partsong. Here

Dykes gives us an opening phrase reminiscent of Schubert with its prominent appoggiatura. Furthermore, the more florid crotchet movement in the soprano is much more redolent of a song than it is of a hymn (as is the tenor part which moves in contrary motion). In addition, Dykes begins this hymn obliquely with a progression starting with the submediant (and progressing

VI-IIb-V-I). Such practice of tangential openings was particularly common in the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann. The distinctive nature of this opening statement with Tuttiett’s words ‘O quickly come’ is put to even

ccx

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on. Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.

(J. H. Newman) Ex. 20: LUX BENIGNA greater artistic effect at the end of each verse. Meanwhile, to accentuate the atmosphere of darkness (appropriate to Advent), Dykes modulates to A minor for his second line (rather than the dominant) as if to emphasise the

ccxi connection with oblique opening on the submediant in line one and line two.

To dispel the ‘shadows’, lines three and four are more lyrical and develop a sequence of rising phrases (in contrast to the falling one of line one) which conclude on a long-awaited dominant. This dominant, however, longing to be resolved on to the tonic, moves on to the submediant, undermining the normal platitude of reprise with its ‘interrupted’ cadence, and, in addition, a further sequential statement in G minor is used with powerful effect to continue the line. This intensity is subsequently dissipated by the more euphonious last line which finally establishes the tonic. And, as if Dykes, wishes to remind us of the partsong nature of this hymn tune, the ‘motto’ idea heard at the opening is reiterated in the tenor at the final cadence.

ccxii

O quickly come, dread Judge of all; For awful though Thine advent be, All shadows from the truth will fall, And falsehood die, in sight of Thee.

O quickly come: for doubt and fear Like clouds dissolve when Thou art near.

(L. Tuttiett) Ex. 21: VENI CITO

There are many further examples of this kind of hybrid genre which were clearly designed to be enjoyed by confident and numerous choirs.

CHRISTMAS SONG, an a cappella setting of Bright’s ‘Once again, O blessed

ccxiii time’ (and written for Stainer’s and Bramley’s Christmas Carols New and Old), is distinctive for its extended phrases, its harmonic surprises (notably the shift the flat submediant and the recovery to the 6/4 on V of C via an augmented sixth) and the florid nature of the inner parts particularly towards the final cadence. ECCE PANIS, an extended Communion hymn (with a text translated from the Latin) is a further instance of a hymn which moves from minor to major, where, in this case, the major mode underpins the refrain (‘Very Bread,

Good Shepherd tend us’). Here, too, the organ is a vital part of the

‘performance’ behaving as a bridge between the two parts of the verse (which themselves represent the two differing sections of the Bible – i.e. the Old and

New Testament). The organ also provides important (though possibly optional) and characteristic preludial and postludial material for SLEEP,

HOLY BABE, also written for Stainer’s Carols. Here the emphasis is on the opening words of Caswall’s poem (effectively an inverted refrain). In this carol, Dykes provides much interest for the inner parts. These are conspicuous in part for their independence, but above all they are remarkable for their dissonance as components of Dykes’s rich harmonic tapestry (note, for example, the Schumannesque divergence to V7b of C at the end of the first line, and the piquant progression back to the dominant in the last line).

ccxiv

Sleep, Holy Babe! Upon Thy mother’s breast: Great Lord of earth, and sea, and sky, How sweet it is to see Thee lie In such a place of rest. (E. Caswall) Ex. 22: SLEEP, HOLY BABE

ccxv The harmonic richness and complexity of these ‘hymn-partsongs’ are typical of just how innovative Dykes became in working within the ostensibly simple and stereotypical genre of the hymn. Many of the works he contributed to the later editions of HA&M (1868 and especially 1875) reveal a sophistication that outstrips the imagination of other hymn composers of his time. That he was to experiment with yet further techniques of structure and metre is evident in CHRISTUS CONSOLATUR, a setting of Neale’s translation ‘Art thou weary, art thou languid’ in a most unusual metre of

8.5.8.3., which concludes with a highly epigrammatic refrain of three syllabic feet (e.g. ‘Be at rest’). The metre of the hymn is enough to unsettle the symmetry of the structure, but Dykes provides a highly atypical overlay of a tonal structure that commences in G minor but concludes in F, requiring the organ to provide a transition back to G via its falling bass through E flat.

Dykes’s keen sense of counterpoint also enables the soprano line to move up from F to F# effortlessly for the beginning of the next verse. As for the rationale of Dykes’s scheme here, the disparity of G minor and F major can be explained by the interrogative of the poem, notably the first two lines of each verse, all of which pose a question.

That Dykes’s harmonic language encapsulated much that was typical of the Romantic era is perhaps most pointedly exemplified through the rejection by the committee of HA&M (1904) of his harmonic progressions in

ccxvi

Art thou weary, art thou languid, Art thou sore distrest? ‚Come to Me,‛ saith One, ‚and coming Be at rest!‛

(J. M. Neale, translation) Ex. 23: CHRISTUS CONSOLATUR

O STRENGTH AND STAY. This evening hymn, one of the most popular and poignant that Dykes produced (for the 1875 edition of HA&M) for a translation provided by Ellerton, reveals Dykes’s dexterity both on a diatonic and chromatic level. In addition to the unusual progression of the first line, which descends to a 6/4 of the tonic, Dykes makes fruitful use of the mediant chord (especially at the cadence) and two secondary sevenths on VI7 and II7.

But his most arresting progression is reserved for the second line where he juxtaposes two diminished sevenths as part of a move to the dominant. And, as if to ‘outdo’ this unexpected harmonic move, in the final line his bass descends chromatically to V of V to accompany the melodic climax in the top

ccxvii line. These highly characteristic elements, quintessential to an understanding of Dykes’s style and craft, were considered beyond the realms of ‘good taste’ for the 1904 version of HA&M and, as can be seen from the examples below, his original version was bowdlerised in favour of more diatonic progressions

– alterations which effectively emasculated Dykes’s creation – and, arguably, one of his very best tunes.

O Strength and Stay upholding all creation, Who ever dost Thyself unmoved abide, Yet day by day the light in due gradation From hour to hour through all its changes guide;

(J. Ellerton, translation)

Ex. 24a: O STRENGTH AND STAY (original version: HA&M 1875)

ccxviii

Ex. 24b: O STRENGTH AND STAY (altered version: HA&M 1904)

In addition to the harmonic colour of O STRENGTH AND STAY, the hymn tune also evinces a highly sophisticated matrix of thematic development. The rising third of the melody’s opening provides the germ on which the rest of the hymn is based. Note for example, after the opening statement, how the melody turns in on itself, articulating the opening third in retrograde motion (A to F#). This is then changed by another statement of the same minor third upwards in the second line, but through G# and the upward scale continues up beyond B to C# before concluding the phrase with another upward cell from E to A. This fourth interval, an ‘extension’ of the third interval is initially restated for the first climax in line three before it is further extended to a sixth interval (D to B); and, finally, the second climactic moment in line four is achieved through a rising interval of a seventh (E to D) before the cadence supports a retrograde melodic descent of a third. Such intricacy is

ccxix typical of many of Dykes later hymns, notably those that were included in the editions of HA&M of 1868 and 1875. PARADISE, a particularly poignant composition (written after the death of his daughter), is a good example of thematic concentration in which a germane motive inhabits all other parts.

But perhaps one of Dykes most sophisticated tunes is CHARITAS, a setting of

‘Lord of glory, Who has bought us’ (for the giving of alms) by Mrs Alderson

(Dykes’s sister), which reveals a complex and compact variation structure.

Example 25 below demonstrates that Dykes conceived his tune as a development of the material established in line – a repeated-note figure in the soprano, followed by a scalic descent down a fourth, and an athletic bass

ccxx

Lord of glory, Who hast bought us, With Thy Life-blood as the price,

ccxxi Never grudging for the lost ones That tremendous sacrifice, And with that hast freely given Blessings, countless as the sand, To the unthankful and the evil With Thine own unsparing hand;

(Mrs Alderson) Ex. 25 CHARITAS

‘fanfare’ figure outlining the tonic triad but descending to the dominant below. Line three reveals a repetition of these three components now transposed up a tone into F# minor, though with different consequent material in line four (though note how the soprano line is itself derived from the ‘repeated-note’ figure). The next move, to D major (the flattened seventh of E) is perhaps one of Dykes’s most radical tonal gestures in all his hymnody

(a tonal move one might more readily associate with Schumann or Chopin).

Here it accompanies a melodic extension of the original melody which rises triadically to D before falling through the accustomed fourth, while the bass continues to repeat the same figure. Dykes’s recovery is masterly. A sequence of two rising thirds (arguably a ‘reduction’ of the original fourth interval) in the melody are supported by a falling third in the bass giving rise to a

Phrygian cadence at the end of line six. This provides the ideal transition to the reprise of the music to line one, but with further variation, including a modulation to the subdominant and a climax on high E which itself articulates a further fourth descent.

ccxxii This level of intricacy in Dykes’s hymn only serves to show that the art of hymn-writing had now become a genre comparable in its seriousness and contrivance with other romantic secular style-forms such as the lied and partsong, not to mention those instrumental forms such as the sonata and symphony. The variation process of CHARITAS exhibits exactly those same thought processes involved in the ‘unity’ of musical composition, that is, an awareness of the development of musical material to create a sense of artistic autonomy. This vital aspect, combined with a desire to extend the hymn to other genres (notably partsong, chant, anthem and oratorio chorus) and a rich harmonic palette fully cognisant of continental advances, was taken up with alacrity by a further generation of hymn composers, essentially Stainer,

Barnby and Sullivan, who ultimately constituted the twilight of the ‘High

Victorian’ Tractarian hymn at the end of the nineteenth century. Their work would bring Dykes’s pioneering innovations to even greater heights of creative invention and artistic autonomy before a change in taste would reject the style almost completely.

ccxxiii CHAPTER SIX

Barnby, Stainer and Sullivan:

Tractarian Hymnody and High Victorianism

The hymn tunes of John Bacchus Dykes discussed in the previous chapter were very much a reflection and personal expression of an accomplished musician but nevertheless a man whose vision was shaped by his vocation as a priest. Dykes undoubtedly made his mark in the office of Precentor in

Durham Cathedral and his musical activities were shaped by his ecclesiastical environment first and foremost. However, with the younger generation of church musicians, namely Joseph Barnby, John Stainer and Arthur Sullivan, their musical outlook, though strongly linked to church music, was determined by a more worldly conception which involved activity in the secular sphere of music-making, be it in the theatre, in education or the concert hall. Consequently, in view of the fact that Dykes had himself assimilated much that was symptomatic of nineteenth-century Romanticism and of romantic music, his successors, who were increasingly knowledgeable of this repertoire, both in theory and practice, were more than ready to reflect their enthusiasms in their own hymnody. Hence, in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, the Victorian hymn reached its climax in a style even more pronouncedly hybrid in its attempt to assimilate modern harmony,

ccxxiv melody and rhythm. Furthermore, the hymn would continue to explore other genres, many of them secular, which in some instances led to an increased congregational popularity.

6.1 Joseph Barnby.

Joseph Barnby, born at York on 12 August, 1838, organist (like his father), composer, conductor, as well as director of music at Eton and later principal of The Guildhall School of Music, was a child prodigy. His early years in fact represent ‘in embryo’ his future career. At York Minister he was a chorister from the age of seven but soon learned to teach the other choirboys. His talent as an organist was also developed from the age of twelve. Taking everything in his stride he secured several organ positions in the London churches serving at Mitcham, St Michael’s Queenhithe and St. James the Less,

Westminster, before being appointed to St Andrews, Wells Street, under the prominent Tractarian Rector, Benjamin Webb. Barnby’s work at Wells Street attracted attention from well beyond London, particularly for the way in which, with Webb’s imprimatur, he enriched the services with not only continental music by Gounod, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Schumann, but also with the presence of an orchestra. Indeed, it was as if sensibilities had returned to those days at the end of the eighteenth century when symphonic masses were enjoyed as a matter of course in the Catholic churches of Europe.

ccxxv In much the same as some frowned on the introduction of a harp in

Mendelssohn’s Berlin church orchestra (the harp being construed as very much a secular instrument), some members of Barnby’s congregation took a dim view of the presence of a harp in his liturgical performance of Gounod’s

Messe solennelle which was first performed at Wells Street in November 1866, and in 1873, after his move to St Anne’s, Soho, he instituted annual performances of the St John Passion by Bach, having already encouraged Turle at Westminster Abbey to perform the St Matthew Passion in a liturgical setting in 1872. Barnby’s approach to these performances, as Temperley has noted,10 was to create a culture of concert sacred music. Nevertheless, the spirit of these performances was carried out as a profound liturgical expression and were encouraged by the High Church wing who aspired to greater richness in terms of culture and colour. For Barnby, too, these kinds of musical activity were part of a musical personality which embraced the composition of partsongs, cantatas, oratorios and the conducting of the Royal Albert Hall

Choral Society. In connection with the latter, Barnby made his name as one of

England’s most prominent choral conductors and a leading exponent of modern choral works such as Dvoř{k’s Stabat Mater, Verdi’s ,

Sullivan’s Prodigal Son and The Golden Legend, as well as Wagner’s Parsifal. In

1875, Barnby was appointed Precentor of Eton which involved not only the superintendence of the college chapel and its choir, but also class teaching. He

10 Temperley, N., ‘Barnby, Joseph’, Grove 7.

ccxxvi was an advisor to Novello, and was also, later, Principal of the Guildhall

School of Music.

Barnby was at home midst the Tractarian style of choral worship where large, paid, surpliced choirs played their part. Indeed, both Barnby and

Webb developed a particular style of music for the worship of the Church that eventually became far removed from the austerity of the early Tractarians. In

1869, while still at Wells St, as an indication of how seriously he considered his composition of hymns, Barnby published his Original Tunes to Popular

Hymns for use in Church and Home (OT). These were a collection of hymns written for different and diverse hymnals such as the SPCK Book (edited by

Turle), the Tune Book (edited by J. Foster), the Supplemental Hymn and

Tune Book for Brown-Borthwick, Hymns and Lyrics for the Seasons of the Church

(edited by G. Moultrie) and, of course, HA&M. Three years later, as if to accentuate his High Church credentials, he edited The Hymnary, a book largely directed at Anglo-Catholic congregations under the editorship of

Webb and William Cooke (honorary canon of Chester Cathedral).

Barnby’s hymns frequently betray the composer’s attraction to secular partsong, and an increased sensitivity to harmony and dissonance invariably provides an intense accompaniment to his chosen texts. Composed in 1868,

FOR ALL THE SAINTS (in OT), a setting of How’s familiar text, is a march or processional which reveals typical aspects of Barnby’s art. The dissonances of

ccxxvii bar three where the repeated notes of the alto and soprano (very march-like) are accompanied by tenths in the tenor and bass, while, in bar 4, the melody has an expressive suspension more typical of the partsong sentiment.

Similarly, the ‘Alleluia’ refrain uses an inverted dominant thirteenth chord whose effect is subsequently heightened by the ‘marching’ dotted rhythm.

For all the Saints who from their labours rest, Who thee by faith before the world confest, Thy name, O Jesu, be for ever blest. Alleluya!

(Bishop W.W. How) Ex. 1 FOR ALL THE SAINTS (Barnby)

A continuation of this style is evident in LAUDES DOMINI (also of 1868) to

Caswall’s translation from the German ‘When morning gilds the skies’ included in Formby’s Catholic Hymns of 1854. Note here the use of passing harmonies on ‘skies’, ‘cries’ , ‘pray’r’ and ‘repair’ – perhaps an intended evocation of pealing bells as is also evident in the melodic line – and, in true

ccxxviii Tractarian manner, a refrain that contrasts in augmented time values. This has remained one of Barnby’s best known hymns.

True to the Tractarian values embraced by Webb, Barnby wrote hymns for all seasons and many feast days of the calendrical year. An unusual text – a translation by Neale (from his Hymns of the Eastern Church of 1862) – was one for the festival for St Timothy and St Maura celebrated on 3 May each year by the Orthodox Church which Barnby named somewhat unusually, ST

JOSEPH OF THE STUDIUM. Here again, Barnby reveals his predilection for marching rhythms, especially in the recurrent dotted rhythm of lines two, four, six and eight. But it is in the richer harmonic palette of the hymn that

Barnby finds expression. After the modulation to the mediant, G minor at the end of line four, the excursion to F minor gives rise, arrestingly to the subdominant, A flat at the end of line six, accompanying, appropriately, the celestial aura of ‘Heaven’s bright portal’. For Holy Communion, Barnby’s harmonic sensibility is even more heightened in VICTIM DIVINE which sets

Charles Wesley’s verse ‘Victim Divine, Thy grace we claim’, one that, somewhat surprisingly, looks forward in its reference to the Eucharist and ritualism. The triple time of this hymn is very much reminiscent of the partsong ‘Sweet and Low’ and the sense of harmonic rhythm is also more secular in its ponderous movement. This is, for example, evident in the long tonic pedal of the first line. But perhaps most striking are the expressive

ccxxix harmonies, and even more so the prolixity of appoggiaturas, many of the double appoggiaturas to increase the expressivity. The first, second and third lines provide numerous examples: bar 2 and bar 3 provide instances of double appoggiaturas, the superimposed dominant ninth over the tonic pedal being an especially poignant dissonance; line three re-echoes the same melody but the double appoggiaturas are dissonant with their original supertonic and dominant harmonies defined by the bass; and note the use of the double appoggiatura in line two. In addition, the tune shows Barnby’s marked preference for modulation to the mediant, rather than automatically to the dominant; this is apparent at the end of line two (see also above, ST JOSEPH

OF THE STUDIUM).

ccxxx

Victim Divine, Thy grace we claim While thus Thy precious Death we show; Once offer’d up, a spotless Lamb, In Thy great temple here below, Thou didst for all mankind atone, And standest now before the Throne.

(C. Wesley) Ex. 2 VICTIM DIVINE (Barnby)

The expressive nature of VICTIM DIVINE is demonstrated with even greater intensity in what is perhaps Barnby’s best-known tune, CLOISTERS, set to Pusey’s words ‘Lord of our life, and God of our salvation’ (based on von

Löwenstern’s ‘Christe du Beistand’). This hymn encapsulates the religious

ccxxxi and moral decline of Church life within Victorian England to which reference has already been made in Chapter Three with the clarion call from the poets for ‘revival’ and a hope that the church’s authority might again be restored.

Barnby’s musical response was to match the supplicatory spirit of Pusey’s verse with a prayerful, yearning melody based heavily on musical sequence.

Indeed, the metre of the verse, 11.11.11.5, with its closing refrain of five syllables, seemed to dictate such musical treatment. The repetition of the three sequential lines of eleven syllables embodied a cumulative effect of supplication which allowed the refrain to be a climax of both textual and musical meaning. Many of the musical ideas, furthermore, underlined

Barnby’s particular artistic penchant. The seminal elements were all contained within the first line: (a) the repeated notes of the melody and harmony; (b) the rich (albeit brief) passing modulation to the subdominant; (c) the multiple suspensions superimposed above the bass. These components are subsequently developed in lines two and three. In line two, the modulation is initially to the relative minor before moving to its dominant, G minor (note, again, Barnby’s penchant for the mediant rather than the platitude of the dominant), replete with suspensions. While in line three, a climbing phrase modulates back to the relative minor (C minor) having passed through the suggestion of a subdominant modulation to A flat. Finally, at the point of refrain, it is to chord IV, the subdominant of E flat that we move to support the brief but powerful variant refrain (‘Lord God Almighty’, (v.1.), ‘Thou

ccxxxii canst preserve us’, (v.2.), ‘Grant us Thy peace, Lord’,(v.3.), and finally, ‘Peace in Thy Heaven’) which embodies the spiritual epicentre of the text.

Lord of our life, and God of our salvation, Star of our night, and Hope of every nation, Hear and receive Thy Church’s supplication, Lord God Almighty.

(P. Pusey) Ex. 3 CLOISTERS (Barnby)

Many of the features of CLOISTERS appear in Barnby’s other enduring tune, ST CHRYSOSTOM, set to the words ‘Jesu, my Lord, my God, all’ by

Henry Collins (like Caswall, another eventual convert to Rome) in which the author pursued a central facet of Tractarian writers, the virtue of holiness.

Here, once more, we see Barnby’s predilection for repeated notes as part of his melody and harmony, along with sequence as a seminal part of the tune’s musical structure. The opening two lines reiterate the tendency to move from

ccxxxiii the tonic to the mediant, and both place much emphasis on the double suspension on the fourth syllable, which in the context of the mediant, is even more dissonantly intense in its higher register:

Jesu, my Lord, my God, my all, Hear me, blest Saviour, when I call; Hear me, and from thy dwelling-place Pour down the riches of thy grace. Jesu, my Lord, I thee adore, O make me love thee more and more.

(H. Collins)

Ex. 4 ST CHRYSOSTOM (Barnby)

ccxxxiv The same type of artifice that we find in Barnby’s hymns are echoed in his secular partsongs and, in a more neglected way, in his carols for Christmas, many of which are published in Stainer’s Christmas Carols New and Old.11

Indeed, this fact in itself accentuates the tendency for all three genres to overlap. Perhaps one of the best examples is ‘A Cradle-Song of the Blessed

Virgin’ to a translation of H. R. Bramley. Here we see yet again that penchant for repeated notes in the melody, a love of choice dissonances (such as the suspension in the first line), a prolixity of seventh and ninth chords, a chromatic approach to the dominant key in line three, and a wonderfully shaped refrain (‘My darling do not weep’) with its suspensions, accented passing notes and drawn out cadence.

11 Barnby contributed four new carols to Stainer’s and Bramley’s collection. In addition to ‘The Virgin stills the crying’, ‘When I view the mother holding’, another translation of Bramley, is a rather beautiful and original lullaby full of innovative and rich harmony as well as unconventional irregular phraseology. The third carol, ‘It was the very noon of night’ was a translation from the Spanish of Gongora by Churchton, while the fourth, ‘Twas in the winter cold’ (C. J. Black) makes use of similar chromatic processes as demonstrated in the hymns.

ccxxxv The Virgin stills the crying Of Jesus sleepless lying; And singing for His pleasure Thus calls upon her Treasure, My Darling, do not weep, My Jesu, sleep!

(H. R. Bramley, from the Latin)

Ex. 5: A CRADLE-SONG OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN (Barnby)

These same features can also be observed in ‘‘Twas in the winter cold’ in the same collection.

6.2 John Stainer.

John Stainer’s musical career was deeply embedded within the life of the

Anglican church, but the nature of his musical experience within church music was to shape him very much as an archetypal Tractarian, with an emphasis on high church ritualism. A chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral, he was also part of Ouseley’s experiment at St Michael’s College, Tenbury. Though his time at Tenbury would have inculcated a love of the liturgy, the calendrical year, and the desire to allow music (in both the form of choral worship and the place of the organ) to bond and feel part of the need for order and spiritual mystery, he would nevertheless have understood

Tractarianism very much from the point of view of Ouseley’s ‘broad church’ views. (Ouseley, for example, remained antipathetical towards plainsong and

ccxxxvi ritualism, though his support for the Ecclesiologists found expression in

Woodyer’s design of the Tenbury buildings.) However, after taking up his position in January 1860 as organist and choirmaster at Magdalen College,

Oxford, he would have been much more aware of Magdalen’s high church background influenced particularly by the presence (until 1863) of John Rouse

Bloxam who was a prominent Anglo-Catholic and had been Newman’s curate at Littlemore.12 All of Magdalen’s clergymen dons were inclined to high church practices, including H. R. Bramley who collaborated on the carols with

Stainer at Magdalen during the 1860s and early 1870s; equally important too was the fact Stainer’s mentor, as an undergraduate at St Edmund’s Hall, was none other than Henry Parry Liddon, whose mentor had been Pusey. In

Oxford, among these clergymen and theologians, it would have been virtually impossible not to have been susceptible to Tractarianism and to the increasing interest in ritualism among Anglo-Catholics. After twelve years at Magdalen,

Stainer was head-hunted by three Oxford Tractarians, Liddon, Robert

Gregory and who had all recently been appointed to

St Paul’s Cathedral. Moreover, all three were charged with a new and urgent duty to reform St Paul’s Cathedral (the national cathedral) in the Tractarian mould, and Stainer with his obvious insights gained at Magdalen, together with his youthful vigour (he was only 32) and overwhelming abilities as a musician, was clearly the best and most sympathetic candidate by far.

12 See Dibble, J., John Stainer: A Life in Music (Boydell & Brewer, 2007), 71-2.

ccxxxvii At St Paul’s Stainer’s reforms of the choir have been documented in

Dibble’s recent biography,13 but of equal importance to the reform of boys and men and the music they sang was the reform of the liturgy from the apathy of past years.14 Under the aegis of Liddon, Gregory and Church, choral Holy

Communion was instituted, the dignity of the clergy and choir was established, and an entire programme of music was formulated to adhere to the church year (including a printed music list). In addition, after a year at St

Paul’s, Stainer (and the Succentor, Sparrow-Simpson) was part of St Paul’s

Tractarian zeal to establish HA&M as the standard hymn book for the cathedral.15 Moreover, and much to Stainer’s satisfaction, by 1877 the Chapter at St Paul’s were sympathetic to the introduction of Christmas carols which were sung daily at evensong during the octave of Christmas.16

Stainer’s attraction to the composition of hymns began as early as 1867 when he contributed his tune SUDELEY to the 1868 supplement of HA&M to the words ‘Jesu, the very thought of thee’, a translation by Caswall. The tune, which enjoyed some popularity, was also included in Sullivan’s Church

Hymns (where it was used to texts by William Cowper and John Keble) of

1874 and Stainer contributed several hymns to the Supplemental Hymn and

Tune Book, the Congregational Church Hymnal (ed. Hopkins), the Hymnary (ed.

13 Ibid., 138 passim. 14 Ibid., 15-29. 15 Dibble, 154n. 16 Ibid., 190-1.

ccxxxviii Barnby), the Mitre Hymnal, the Church of England Hymnal (ed. A. H. Mann).

For Stainer, however, it was most auspicious to be co-opted onto the committee of the 1875 edition of HA&M where he rubbed shoulders with his idol, Dykes. Indeed, Stainer was keen to admit his indebtedness to Dykes’s aesthetic (and to Monk’s) in the preface to his Hymn Tunes of 1900.

It is impossible to speak of Dr Dykes without enthusiasm; he devoted his musical genius (for genius he certainly had) entirely to the service of the Church, with the splendid results with which we are all happily so familiar. Dr. Monk was no less imbued with a keen sense of musical fitness and the wants of a congregation; hence the great success and value of his tunes.17

Stainer’s love of song naturally subsumed one of a fascination for hymnody and this he also made clear in his preface, confessing, as a symptom of the age in which he lived (i.e. the turn of the twentieth century), that it was distinctly unfashionable to express an admiration for Dykes tunes, and for

Victorian hymnody in general:

Encouraged by the kindly words of two such musicians (i.e. Dykes and Monks), I confess that I plunged deeply into the fascinating study of hymnody, and have lost no opportunity of employing myself as a humble labourer in a sphere congenial and dear to me from the time of my childhood. It requires some courage at the present moment to announce oneself as a disciple of Dykes, because modern hymn-tunes are likely to have to pass through the fire of severe criticism. They are, it is said, ‚sentimental‛ and ‚weak‛; these epithets are mild and polite compared to *sic+ many others hurled against them. No doubt many tunes that are over-sweet may, after twenty-five years’ use, begin to cloy. But it must not be forgotten that the critics of hymn-tunes nearly always fall into the insidious snare of judging of the old by the best specimens, and of the modern by the worst. Out of the many hundreds of those early English tunes which composers are often urged to imitate, probably not more than a score are familiar to us, and these have been carefully selected by a long succession of admirers who have sifted

17 Stainer, J., Hymn Tunes (London: Novello, 1900), iii.

ccxxxix every available source; and yet these are held up as proofs of the general merit of the heap of worthless rubbish from which they have been extracted; moreover, it must not be forgotten that of these choice examples probably not half-a-dozen are given in their original form. Of the middle period of English tunes, about another score are in use; of Plain-song, old French, Genevan, and German tunes probably less than fifty appear in popular collections.18

It is clear from the declaration that Stainer was unapologetic about his support for the tradition of hymn composition in which he had grown up, even though he knew that his admiration for Dykes and his newly published volume would face stern criticism from the new wave of hymn-writers.

Moreover, Stainer believed that the tradition of religious poetry that had played a central part in the church revival (by those Tractarian poets discussed in Chapter Three) was of a special kind:

The true estimate of a hymn-tune cannot be found by principles of abstract criticism, or by any internal evidence that it exhibits an artist’s handicraft. There is something, indefinable and intangible, which can render a hymn- tune, not only a winning musical melody, but also a most powerful evangeliser.19

In further defence of his notion of the hymn, Stainer hit out at the idea that modern techniques of criticism – undoubtedly those nurtured within academic institutions – were properly apt for the kind of religious hymnody conceived and adopted by poets and composers of the Tractarian era:

Much the same may be said of many of our most valuable words and hymns. They would fail to satisfy the artificial requirements of the learned poet, but they uplift the heart and emotions as if by some hidden magic. Alas for the day if such a powerful spiritual influence should ever be lightly set aside in

18 Ibid, iv. 19 Ibid.

ccxl order to make room for words and music intended to teach the higher laws of poetry and a cold respectability in music.20

Stainer’s heartfelt outpourings provided critics such as Hadow and Walker with the ammunition they wanted to berate the hymn tradition of the

Victorian era. Such a tradition, they argued, was devoid of critical acumen, and Stainer, Hadow purported, had deliberately suspended his critical powers in favour of a purely emotional, sentimental response to poor, saccharine poetry.21

Stainer’s statement is undoubtedly intriguing. On the one hand it appears to express the exclusive need for music to convey an emotional response to the text (a value very much in evidence in the hymns of Barnby and Sullivan) and to the sentiments of an age with which he clearly and closely empathised. Yet, in spite of Stainer’s plea for the hymn to be a spur to religious evangelism (as it had begun, as Stainer acknowledged, among the

Non-Conformists), and that this appeal for a spirituality apparently in negation of the cerebral, the examples of his own hymns reveal, time and again, that he could not avoid the incorporation of his own powers of intellect and criticism into the composition of hymns. In fact Stainer’s desire for

‘emotionalism’ is at times sacrificed in favour of studious musical artifice and contrivance typical of a highly self-critical composer. Certainly Stainer’s desire to create musically ‘unified’ compositions within the genre of the hymn

20 Stainer, iv. 21 See Bradley, 203.

ccxli builds on the models of Dykes; though it might be argued at times that the cerebral nature of his hymn tunes – expressed in terms of motivic consistency, tonal equilibrium and contrapuntal interaction – outweighs the apparent

‘spontaneity’ of his idol.

As Percy Scholes has described: ‘Stainer’s style might be called ‘better

Victorian’ and be more laboriously characterised as Bach softened by

Mendelssohn and assimilated to the traditions of the Anglican Church in the mood of its post-Tractarian spiritual propriety’.13 Such a summary encapsulates Stainer’s love of lyrical melody as often characterised by

Mendelssohn, yet his love of Bach (whose revival he had witnessed as a choirboy) encouraged a dimension of contrapuntal detail that is reflected in the involution of his part-writing and its frequently dense motivic nature. Yet, at his best, Stainer’s tunes often rival those of Dykes and Barnby in terms of sheer romantic fervour. What is more, Stainer took the genre of the hymn deeply seriously both as a musical entity and as an agency of religious expression. The fact that he wished to have all his hymns collected into one volume clearly suggests that he believed his efforts represented an important, personal sphere of his musical creativity (and, in keeping with Tractarian aspirations, contributed hymns for the whole calendrical year as well as for

13 Scholes, 893.

ccxlii the major feast days and the sacraments).14 Moreover, Stainer, like his native contemporaries, considered the role of musical editor to a hymn book an honour as well as a mark of prestige. His subservient position to Dykes on the

1875 committee of HA&M was undoubtedly important to him, but when the

Scottish churches asked him to edit a hymnal that brought together hymns from all Scottish denominations, he was delighted, not least because he believed he might never enjoy the role of editorship.15

Of Stainer’s more than 150 tunes contained in his collected edition, a considerable number were retained in the 1875 and 1889 HA&M editions before many were cut from the edition of 1904. However, with Nicholson’s

1916 revision, which returned to the 1889 supplement, a good portion of

Stainer’s tunes were restored. Today only a relatively small number of these tunes have remained popular (the 1950 HA&M revised edition retains fifteen tunes) among which are LOVE DIVINE, SEBASTE, REST, VESPER, ST

FRANCIS XAVIER, ST PAUL’S, CHARITY, AUTHOR OF LIFE,

EUCHARISTICUS, the children’s hymn IN MEMORIAM, and the hymns from The Crucifixion. Simplicity is often a feature of many of these hymns.

EUCHARISTICUS, a setting of Faber’s communion text ‘Jesu, gentlest

Saviour’ (also set later by Parry to his tune BOURNEMOUTH), is an

14 Stainer’s desire to publish, albeit in a limited edition, all his hymn tunes as reflection his creativity in this genre, was also repeated earlier by Barnby, and, shortly after the publication of Hymn Tunes in 1900, Hopkins’s Complete Hymns was published in 1901, to be followed by Dykes complete tunes in 1902. 15 Dibble, 291.

ccxliii unostentatious metre of 6.5.6.5 and its uniform rhythms seem only to enhance the sense of symmetry. Yet, subtly, Stainer avoids the obvious platitudes. The second line, open-ended, concludes on a first inversion of the subdominant, as if to emulate the ‘expectant’ colon in the text. The third line then takes up this harmony with enthusiasm (‘Fill us with thy goodness’), the climax residing in the top E flat of the soprano (’Fill’). The end of the third line, emphasising benevolence (‘goodness’), is marked by a double suspension on a diminished seventh in close harmony, itself a rich sonority, while the passing modulation to F minor also recalls a similar tonal event in the first line.

Jesu, gentlest Saviour, Thou art in us now, Fill us with Thy Goodness, Till our hearts o’erflow. (F. W. Faber) Ex. 5 EUCHARISTICUS (Stainer)

A range of simple four-line verses reveals Stainer’s versatility in terms of phraseological and harmonic dexterity. VESPER, for example, is a fine example of the metre 7.7.7.5 – once again an instance of a refrain at the

ccxliv conclusion to the verse (‘Light at evening time’). Here the interest is particularly in the third line where Stainer seems to take us initially to the dominant, but at the last moment, deflects us to V of the mediant (G minor) which, phraseologically, links directly with the refrain, creating in effect one long line of 12 syllables. Another tune of the same metre, and refrain device, sets Christopher Wordsworth’s Pentecost hymn ‘Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost’.

Various features here show Stainer’s innate powers of artifice. The second line is linked seamlessly in melody and harmony to underpin the enjambement of

Wordworth’s text in verses 1 and 6, while the third line is a splendid melodic and harmonic expansion (note especially the passing modulation to the subdominant) of line one conflated with melodic elements from the conclusion to line two. The epigrammatic refrain, ‘Holy, heavenly love’, is set apart by its unison statement, plagal cadence and the organ accompaniment.

The role of the organ, commented on much in Dykes’s hymns in Chapter

Four, also features in many of Stainer’s works in the idiom. A simple example, of an extended pedal point, is in LYNTON, which sets J. S. B. Monsell’s

‘Weary and sad, a wanderer from Thee’ (with its regular 10.10.10.10 metre),

ccxlv though many similar instances can be observed in the larger scale

Weary and sad, a wanderer from Thee, By grief heart-broken, and by sin defiled; Oh, what a joy in sorrow ‘tis to be Conscious that I am still, O God, Thy child.

(J. S. B. Monsell) Ex. 6: LYNTON (Stainer)

processional hymns often written as pieces d’occasion. In addition to the role of the organ, Stainer’s subtle technique of musical enjambement was one often deployed as a means of blurring the delineation of the metre. This is particularly evident in ST FANCIS XAVIER (using a translation of Caswall’s

‘My God, I love thee; not because/I hope for heaven thereby’) where not only lines one and two are linked, but also three and four (‘Nor yet because who

ccxlvi love thee not/Are lost eternally), and in the last two lines of ST PAUL’S (‘From earthborn passions set me free,/And make me pure within’).

Besides the ostensibly simple metrical structures of one category of

Stainer’s hymns, there are others which are more overtly complex. SEBASTE, which sets Keble’s evening hymn ‘Hail, gladdening light’, recalls the technique of Anglican chant which Dykes had used in several of his own tunes (see DYKES in Chapter Five). Here Stainer’s response is to allocate chant to the first two lines while, for the final line, which again assumes the role of refrain, he reverts to regular metre. The true effect of this change of musical gesture occurs in the last verse, where, in order to set Keble’s additional (fourth) line (‘Therefore in all the world’), Stainer repeats his metrical refrain with even greater accentuation as if it were a doxology.

Hail, gladdening Light, of His pure glory poured, Who is the Immortal Father, Heavenly Blest, Holiest of Holies, Jesu Christ, our Lord. (J. Keble, from the Greek) Ex. 7 SEBASTE (Stainer)

ccxlvii Another of Stainer’s tunes, LOVE DIVINE, popular for weddings, reveals several unexpected layers of complexity. Other settings of Charles Wesley’s well-known text (from Hymns for Those that Seek and Those That Have Redemp- tion in the Blood of Jesus Christ, 1747) – such as John Wesley’s favoured use of

Purcell’s ‘Fairest Isle’ or the early twentieth-century Welsh congregational

BLAENWERN by William Rowlands – set Wesley’s original poetry of eight- line stanzas. Stainer, on the other hand, opted for setting the poem in four-line verses (leaving out Wesley’s second verse) perhaps to lay greater stress on the theological meaning of the words. In particular this can be felt in the last two verses (‘Finish then thy new creation’ and ‘Changed from glory into glory’) where the sense of eschatology is especially evident (‘when this mortal shall put on immortality’). On a musical level, Stainer’s setting is also elusively sophisticated. The hymn tune is in fact a dance, or more specifically a gavotte, characterised by its two upbeats. This double anacrusis proves to be highly influential on the musical structure. In the first line the rising melodic cell is accompanied by a most inventive chromatic progression which is further developed at the beginning of line three (note how the alto is a chromatic inversion of its corresponding passage in line 1). Moreover, Stainer makes fertile use of the second part of line one as not only a conclusion to line three but also the beginning of line four. Here, most elegantly, the beginning of line four is a poignant dissonance, whereas in former contexts it was a consonance

ccxlviii – all of which serves to emphasise the first word of the last line (‘All’, ‘Enter’,

‘Never’, ‘Glory’, ‘Perfectly’ and ‘Lost’).

Love Divine, all loves excelling, Joy of Heav’n to earth come down, Fix in us Thy humble dwelling, All Thy faithful mercies crown. (C. Wesley) Ex. 8 LOVE DIVINE (Stainer)

This degree of involution is reflected in many of Stainer’s tunes.

Always conscious that he could not outdo Arthur Henry Brown’s setting of

Charlotte Elliott’s ‘Just as I am’, Stainer, nevertheless, attempted his own tune.

The result was typically one of motivic concentration where the opening cell is subject to inversion and expansion (see example). But other features are also of great interest and significance. Striking, for example, is the abrupt modulation to the dominant in bar two – a gesture most unusual in hymnody

– and Stainer’s manipulation of this idea to modulate to the mediant minor at the end of line two. However, Stainer reserves his coup de grace and melodic

ccxlix climax for the end of line three, where, as part of an enjambement into the refrain, Stainer quotes Brown’s tune, presumably as a tribute. OXFORD, another setting of Charlotte Elliott, makes use of almost extravagant chromaticism, the seed of which is established in the first line (which echoes that of LOVE DIVINE). Once again the climax is reserved for the third line,

Just as I am – without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee – O Lamb of God, I come. (C. Elliott) Ex. 9 JUST AS I AM (Stainer) though here the sense of climax is created by the progression of the French augmented sixth chord which forms part of an unresolved modulation to B minor.

ccl

Jesu, Thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress, ‘Midst flaming worlds, in these array’d, With joy shall I lift up my head. (J. Wesley translation) Ex. 10 OXFORD (Stainer)

The harmonic richness of OXFORD is further expanded in what must be one of Stainer’s most unusual hymn creations. DOMINUS MISERICORDIAE, a tune written for Lent and for Jane Borthwick’s text, is characterised by solemn sense of God’s omniscience, a feature marked by the beginning of each verse

(barring the last), ‘Thou knowest, Lord’ (itself surely a paraphrase of

Cranmer’s famous burial sentences). Stainer’s musical approach was to invest his hymn with a monotone but which was deeply coloured with highly unusual and unexpected harmonies. Couched in the most romantic of keys, D flat major, the tune moves slowly, even ponderously, as if to imitate a funeral cortège. The opening chordal progression, I-vi-I, is most unconventional as is the conclusion to the first line where, as if to balance the opening progression,

ccli Stainer provides a symmetry of I-iii-I. This pattern is reiterated in the third line but now the progressions are heard in the context of F minor and the I-iii-

I progression incorporates a somewhat startling augmented triad. After the chromatic progressions of line four, respite is provided in the last two lines which are more genuinely melodic, a musical gesture clearly intended to support the textual impression of healing and penitence.

The vivid contrasts of diatonicism and chromaticism of DOMINUS

MISERICORDIAE, expressed both melodically and harmonically, can also be witnessed in John Wesley’s sacramental hymn ‘Author of Life’. Stainer’s eponymous tune, AUTHOR OF LIFE, has today been generally supplanted by

J. D. Edward’s tune LOVELY in the EH. Edwards’ tune, though composed during the same era, emulates the manner of a chorale (typical of the ‘tasteful parameters’ of Vaughan Williams and Dearmer). Stainer’s tune explores a quite different quintessentially romantic world. More like a partsong in manner, the tune derives its distinctiveness from the rising cell of the first line

cclii and its precipitate fall of a sixth. Such a gesture is more typical of Schumann,

Thou knowest, Lord, the weariness and sorrow Of the sad heart that comes to Thee for rest; Cares of to-day, and burdens for tomorrow, Blessings implored, and sins to be confessed; We come before Thee at Thy gracious word, And lay them at Thy feet: Thou knowest, Lord.

(Jane L. Borthwick) Ex. 11 DOMINUS MISERICORDIAE (Stainer) a similarity confirmed by its more chromatic development in line three to enhance the sense of sacramental mystery (‘Furnished with mystic Wine’).

Stainer puts his attitudinising chromatic harmony to fertile use at the end of line four where he comes to a half close on the dominant of F. Such a harmonic gesture underlines the ambience of divine communion, more urgently resolved by the last two lines (‘Preserve the life Thyself hast given’)

ccliii which sequentially move from F minor back to the tonic, A flat, yet reserving the fullest energy for the climactic F on a diminished chord in the final line

(note also Stainer’s marking of ‘rall.’). Stainer’s craftsmanship even permits a last, telling gesture at the cadence of a motive falling sixth (E flat to G), a subtlety that distinguishes his cerebral mindset from those of Dykes and

Barnby.

Author of life Divine, Who hast a Table spread, Furnished with mystic Wine And everlasting Bread, Preserve the life Thyself hast given, And feed and train us up for heaven. (J. Wesley) Ex. 12 AUTHOR OF LIFE (Stainer)

ccliv

The legerdemain of AUTHOR OF LIFE is exceeded only by the extraordinary sophistication of REST, another of Stainer’s tunes couched in the romantic world of D flat major. At the outset of the tune one is made very much aware of the ‘dissonant’ moment on the inverted dominant thirteenth, a harmony which is sequentially developed at the beginning of the refrain (‘O happy

Saints! For ever blest’), but is the interaction of the intense chromatic harmony

(note the gradually rising bass line that spans lines two and three) with the motivic concentration of the melody (itself made up almost entirely of falling phrases) that makes the hymn so exceptional. Indeed, Stainer’s technique of musical enjambment is, in this context, so refined that the first four lines of the hymn feel that they are but one seamless melodic utterance.

The Saints of God! their conflict past, And life’s long battle won at last, No more they need the shield or sword, They cast them down before their Lord:

cclv O happy Saints! for ever blest At Jesus’ feet how safe your rest.

(Archbishop Maclagan) Ex. 13 REST (Stainer)

Stainer’s collected hymns also include the five hymns which were written specifically for The Crucifixion. These hymns, which function like the chorales of a Passion, draw in the congregation during the psychological drama of ‘Meditation’. The texts of the hymns were by W. J. Sparrow

Simpson, not to be confused with his father, W. Sparrow Simpson, the

Succentor of St Paul’s Cathedral and a major figure in the renaissance of music at that place together with Stainer. Sparrow Simpson of St Paul’s was very much in sympathy with the strong Tractarian ideology at St Paul’s espoused by Liddon, Gregory and Church. His son, additionally, was a strong advocate of Anglo-Catholic ritualism as is evident in his history The Anglo-

Catholic Revival (1932). W. J. Sparrow Simpson had been successful as a student poet and prize-winner at Cambridge University. On leaving he was soon commissioned by Stainer as the librettist of his oratorio Mary Magdalene

(1883) and, after the fair success of this work, known as the ‘Gloucester

Oratorio’, Stainer asked him to provide a libretto for a ‘parish cantata’ that could be used for Passiontide. Sparrow Simpson provided a work that was largely inspired by Tractarian doctrinal ideas such majesty, adoration, intercession and mystery, vocabulary which figures widely in the different sections of the cantata. As Temperley has noted, the tendency during the

cclvi nineteenth century to portray Christ as a human being had taken precedence over the old notion of physical agony,16 and this is very much evident in the sections of the cantata and especially in the hymns that punctuate the musical structure (which are given a particular theological emphasis through their titles). CROSS OF JESUS is probably the best known of all the hymns from The

Crucifixion in that it was later incorporated into hymn books such as HA&M of 1916 and 1950, though Sparrow Simpson’s words were supplanted by C.

Wesley’s Advent poem ‘Come, thou long-expected Jesus’. In The Crucifixion it bears the title ‘The Mystery of the Divine Humiliation’ and dwells on the subject of Jesus as man, as summarised by the last lines ‘Perfect Man on thee was tortured, Perfect God on thee has bled!’ Stainer’s musical depiction is typically one of great ingenuity. The first half of the tune is largely diatonic, replete with intricate part-writing, but it is in the second part of the tune that developmental process is evident. The motivic expansion is worked out in line three using the motive of line one (introduced, incidentally, in a veiled manner in the bass in bar 1), yet other dimensions are also at work. The climactic element is epitomised by the intensification of chromaticism, but also by a series of ‘unresolved’ moments in which no key is ‘tonicised’; moreover, Stainer exercises his typical manner of enjambment by linking the melodic contour of line three with line four. All of the hymns in The

16 See Temperley’s introductory essay to the recording The Crucifixion on the Naxos label (8.557624) in 2004 with the choir of Clare College, Cambridge conducted by Timothy Brown.

cclvii Crucifixion offer both a sense of theological reflection and considerable musical artifice. ETIAM PRO NOBIS mediates on the mystery of the intercession and like so many Tractarian hymns, uses the refrain as a memorable agency (‘Jesus, the Crucified pleads for me’).This is also the case

Cross of Jesus, Cross of Sorrow, Where the blood of Christ was shed, Perfect man on thee was tortured, Perfect God on thee has bled!

(W. J. Sparrow Simpson) Ex. 14 CROSS OF JESUS (Stainer) in PLEAD FOR ME where the closing refrain apes plainsong. Even more pointedly, the final hymn, ALL FOR JESUS, which acts a theological summary, places the refrain at the beginning, though, like CROSS OF JESUS, the musical climax and impact is reserved for the sweeping arc of melody

(and majestical bass descent) in lines three and four.

cclviii

6.3 Arthur Sullivan.

In terms of his generation, Sullivan certainly belongs to that late flowering of

High Victorian hymnody that we have already associated with Dykes, Barnby and Stainer. Sullivan’s early career was, of course, shaped by his work as a chorister of the and organist (of St Michael’s Chester Square from 1861 until 1867 and St Peter’s Church, Cranley Gardens until 1871).

Moreover, Sullivan achieved some fame for his editorship of Church Hymns published in 1874 (itself very much a Tractarian publication), though he was by no means a willing collaborator! Before this publication, however, he was already contributing hymns, notably to Barnby’s Hymnary.

It has already been noted that Dykes, Barnby and Stainer brought an assimilation of various elements of secular music to the hymn. Sullivan, in his own manner, was no different. Indeed, one could argue that his contribution was even more secular. The most obvious starting-point has to be ST

GERTRUDE, a setting of Sabine Baring-Gould’s poem ‘Onward, Christian soldiers’. This poem and tune are indeed renowned for the refrain which characterises the theme of church militancy through the marching rhythm

(evidenced by the ‘oompah’ bass figurations) which moves a step beyond

Barnby’s FOR ALL THE SAINTS. In fact this refrain is barely removed from an operetta chorus as is also clear from the flexibility Sullivan accords to the freedom of part-writing (such as the anticipatory tenor interjection ‘With the

cclix Cross of Jesus’) and the deftness of the exchange of material he exercises in the first four strains between soprano and tenor (such a mannerism again

Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war, With the Cross of Jesus Going on before. Christ, the Royal Master, Leads against the foe; Forward into battle See, His banners go. Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war,

cclx With the Cross of Jesus Going on before! (S. Baring-Gould)

Ex. 15 ST GERTRUDE (Sullivan)

suggesting something more theatrical than sacred). Furthermore, Sullivan’s melodic manner, which is quite far-ranging in terms of vocal register and repetitive ‘catchy’ harmonies are features not of the ecclesiastical mould but of the theatre. Not only is the chorus something that might have emerged from The Pirates of Penzance or HMS Pinafore, but so much of the thematic rhetoric is secular in origin. Besides the obvious march style, Sullivan also builds in military fanfares which clearly make reference to the ‘natural harmonic’ series available to brass instruments (as if to point to the military

‘natural’ bugle or trumpet of battle used to go ‘forward into battle’). These operatic, secular properties might also be said to inhabit IN MEMORIAM, a tune used to prominent effect in Sullivan’s eponymous concert overture. This simple tune also features repetitive notes in its first two lines, though, interestingly, the third, more chromatic in style, could easily have come from the pages of Dykes.

Though more rhythmically conservative, RESURREXIT, a setting of a

Latin translation by Ellerton from Venantius Fortunatus, than either ST

GERTRUDE or IN MEMORIAM, this tune continues the topos of repeated notes, and the operatic ambience can be felt in the bass part which is

cclxi surprisingly gesticulative and athletic. Again this hymn features a prominent refrain (‘Christ is risen!’), but more in keeping with the style of Dykes, Barnby and Stainer, it shares a greater chromaticism in its modulations to F#, B and E by way of sequential treatment. Another central Tractarian text was the harvest poem ‘To Thee, O Lord, our hearts we raise’ by Chatteron Dix.

Sullivan’s melody, GOLDEN SHEAVES, with its unusual emphases on feminine cadences has a distinctive secular air as does the conspicuous ‘cycle of fifths’ in the penultimate line. BISHOPSGARTH, which Sullivan sets to the same words, also features prominent feminine cadences, but it is the repeated notes of lines one, three and seven which are so typical and memorable.

The ‘operatic’ element of Sullivan’s hymn tunes is perhaps to be expected, given his strong connection with Gilbert and the Savoy Theatre. But

Sullivan also demonstrates a fluency in other genres. A tune such as VALETE, using words by Faber (‘Sweet Saviour! bless us ere we go’), is a more reflective utterance in keeping with its ‘evening’ setting. Nevertheless,

Sullivan’s thumbprint can be seen in the strong emphasis on the melody and its ‘secular’ contour, especially in the affecting shape of the refrain (‘Through life’s long day’) and its climactic high F, and in the typical pedal point (on the tonic) of line one (a musical feature of many of Sullivan’s operatic choruses).

Of a similarly contemplative cast, but of an even simpler harmonic palette, is

COENA DOMINI, a communion hymn. Here Sullivan provides but two extended melodic phrases to suit Neale’s unusual metre of 10.10. LUX EOI (to

cclxii Caswall’s

Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord, And drink the holy Blood for you outpoured. (Caswall) Ex. 16 COENA DOMINI (Sullivan)

‘Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding’) continues the trend of traditional hymn- like homophony and regular phraseology, but its gesticulative melodic character and repeated notes in the bass are distinctly Sullivanesque, as is the climactic ‘finale-like’ conclusion with its quirky chromatic inflection in the melodic line. A setting of Neale’s translation ‘Come, ye faithful, raise the strain’, ST KEVIN, is similarly more conventionally homophonic, but the tune

(replete with repeated melodic notes) gains distinction from the two semibreves which mark the cadential points (and the poem’s rhyming scheme) at the ends of lines two, four, six and eight. ST FRANCIS, for

cclxiii example, a hymn for the sacrament of baptism, explores the freedom of

Sweet Saviour! Bless us ere we go; Thy word into our minds instil, And make our lukewarm hearts to glow With lowly love and fervent will. Through life’s long day, and death’s dark night, O gentle Jesu, be our Light. (F. W. Faber) Ex. 17 VALETE (Sullivan)

Anglican chanting (in common with Dykes and Stainer). Indeed the flexible metrical structure of ST FRANCIS (10.6.10.6.8.8.4) with its two chanted lines and metrical conclusion resembles the manner of SEBASTE and may indeed have been Stainer’s model. Sullivan’s own setting of Newman’s ‘Lead, kindly light’, LUX IN TENBRIS, is manifested as a partsong and its variegated phraseology confirms this stylistic genus. Indeed, Sullivan noted at the bottom of the page in Church Hymns that, ‘in consequence of the irregularity of the rhythm of this hymn, it has been found necessary to print the music to

cclxiv all three verses.’17 LUX IN TENEBRIS, like Dykes’s LUX BENIGNA, is an unjustly neglected example of High Victorian Tractarian hymnody, in which

Newman’s words are given greater rhythmical space to develop, unlike the more familiar yet uniform SANDON of Charles Henry Purday.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on; The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead Thou me on. Keep Thou my feet; I do not have to see The distant scene: one step enough for me.

(J. H. Newman) Ex. 18 LUX IN TENEBRIS (Sullivan)

If LUX IN TENEBRIS could be sung as an anthem rather than a hymn, then

THE STRAIN UPRAISE, an extraordinary setting of Neale’s translation from

17 See Sullivan, A., Church Hymns (SPCK: London, 1874), 343.

cclxv Godescalcus, has to be the composer’s most ambitious accompanied hymn.

Sullivan originally wrote this tune for Brown-Borthwick’s Supplemental Hymn

& Tune Book, but elected to include it in Church Hymns of 1874 where he also included Goss’s PRAISE MY SOUL, John Naylor’s expansive setting of

Neale’s THE FOE BEHIND (‘The foe behind, the deep before’) and his own arrangement of ST ANN (attributed to William Croft). THE STRAIN

UPRAISE was conceived very much as a processional piece, with a large, indeed majestic independent part for organ and with varied forms of musical delivery for the choir. The independence of the organ is established at the very opening of the hymn with a spacious prelude (see Example 19a), as well as at the end of verse one. As the hymn progresses the role of the organ becomes more overtly indispensable. While it doubles the choir in harmony, additional verses take the form of recited chant, divided between trebles and basses, while clear instructions for the manuals are given by the composer.

Perhaps even more arresting in Sullivan’s setting is that the free delivery of the chant runs hand in hand with ambitious tonal exploration (we travel as far as F# minor before gradual recovery to the tonic takes place), and the texture and volume of the organ is used to underpin the meaning of the text.

In the last verse, too, Sullivan not only returns to the majestic texture of verse one but also, for the quasi-doxology, amplifies the coda and the repeated alleluias with enhanced dissonance, the effective use of the choir’s higher register and the closing unison. In this hymn Sullivan was clearly innovative

cclxvi in how he saw the processional type of hymn might develop, particularly in its relationship to the organ. Such a model would be considerably influential in Stanford’s ENGELBERG, ST PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE and Vaughan

Williams’s SINE NOMINE and would eventually become an accepted manner of ‘performance’ of the hymn in J. L. Bennett’s Varied Harmonies for Organ

cclxvii

The strain upraise of joy and praise, Alleluia! To the glory of their King shall the ransom’d people sing, Alleluia.

cclxviii And the choirs that dwell on high Shall re-echo thro’ the sky, Alleluia. They in the rest of Paradise who dwell, The blessed ones, with joy the chorus swell, Alleluia; The planets, beaming on their heavenly way, The shining constellations, join and say, Alleluia. (J. M. Neale, translation)

Ex. 19 THE STRAIN UPRAISE (Sullivan)

Accompaniment …of Certain Tunes in Hymns Ancient & Modern (published by

William Clowes in 1912).

cclxix EPILOGUE

The publication of Stainer’s Hymn Tunes in 1900 marked an important watershed in the changing taste of hymnody in the Anglican Church and indeed elsewhere. As Bradley has stated, ‘the twentieth century began with a strong reaction against most things Victorian, and hymns were no exception’, and this reaction was self-evident in Hadow’s review of Stainer’s Hymns, as cited in the introduction to this thesis.1 Arthur Mann, organist and choirmaster at King’s College, Cambridge, whom Stainer much admired, was no less critical in his reply to Henry King of Novello who had sent him a copy: ‘Many thanks for book. It is done as one expects from such a firm - but I do not think it will increase his reputation as a Tune writer.’2 As also mentioned at the beginning of this thesis, the sea-change in taste was symbolised by the publication of Robert Bridges’ Yattendon Hymnal which agitated for a new ‘standard’ of poetry. The Yattendon Hymnal proved to be highly influential on the next generation of H&AM (1904) where the musical committee, headed by the noted antiquarian, W. H. Frere, campaigned for a new, fresh, manly style of tune which sought to purge the ‘emotionalism’ of earlier Victorian hymnody essentially articulated by its powerful odour of chromaticism. Part of this purge was a new musical movement driven by

1 Bradley, 221. 2 Letter from Arthur Mann to Henry King,GB-Lstp,4 June 1901.

cclxx nationalism. By the turn of the century, folk song as a means of articulating national identity and character, was in the ascendant. Moreover, folk song, though invariably modal in flavour, was, nevertheless, healthily diatonic and chimed with the new puritanical desire to ‘cleanse’ hymnody of mawkish, febrile sentimentality. In addition there was a renewed zeal for antiquarianism. A rediscovery of Britain’s Tudor heritage and the Elizabethan

‘golden age’ – with the likes of Tallis, Byrd and Gibbons – flourished hand in hand with a broader exhumation of ‘old tunes’ from European as well as

English Protestant hymn books as well as the growing popularity of carols.

Woodward’s publications, with the assistance of , are emblematic of this tendency, especially the Cowley Carol Book of 1901 and

Songs of Syon which was published in 1904. Songs of Syon typically included plainchant, chorales, carols as well as old French, German, Swiss and Italian tunes, harmonised ‘tastefully’ in a transparently diatonic manner.

The artistic policy of this hymnal, little known today, foreshadowed the 1904 edition of HA&M and the English Hymnal (1906). In the case of the former, which had been so quintessential to worship in Anglican churches and to the Tractarian reformers, its public appeal was disastrous and necessitated the publication of a new edition superintended by Sydney

Nicholson in 1916 based on the 1889 supplement. It was, to the publishers, tantamount to an admission that, despite the ‘mission’ of its editors, taste for

Victorian hymnody, and many of the ‘modern’ Tractarian works enshrined by

cclxxi the hymnal, were far from dead. However, it did not stop Vaughan Williams and from proselytizing their anti-Victorian sentiments in EH and in further supplements where so many Tractarian hymn tunes by Dykes,

Stainer, Barnby and others were deliberately excluded or confined, with some teeth-gritting contempt, to the appendix. Moreover, later hymnals such as the

Clarendon Hymn Book and Songs of Praise (a further unofficial ‘supplement’ to

EH), hardened the policy with their preponderance of ‘strong’ unison tunes by William Harris, Hugh Allen, Henry Ley, Alexander Brent Smith, Arthur

Warrell and Sydney Watson. The hymns of , notably

MICHAEL and SEVERN, form part of the same aesthetic legacy.

The reaction represented by this style of hymn was also accompanied by a violent dislike of the ‘High Victorian’ style expressed in Ernest Walker’s

History of Music in England, first published in 1907. Here Walker’s comments intimated that the sooner the style was forgotten about, the better. Yet, even more caustic were the dismissals of Erik Routley who could find little or nothing of merit to say about Dykes’s hymns and of Stainer’s work; his demolition was complete in his article ‘On Stainer’s Crucifixion’.3 Routley’s contemporary, , also expressed his own opprobrium for

Victorian hymns and carols in the exclusion of all the ‘modern’ items of

Stainer’s and Bramley’s Christmas Carols New and Old in the Oxford Book of

Carols with the exception of Goss’s ‘See amid the winter’s snow’. It was a

3 Routley, ‘On Stainer’s Crucifixion’, British Weekly.30 May, 1957.

cclxxii sentiment similarly expressed in the recent New Oxford Book of Carols edited by Andrew Parrott and Hugh Keyte. Only with Arthur Hutchings, (N.

Temperley & I.Bradley) in his articles reappraising Dykes, do we see a change of heart and an attempt to see beyond what were ultimately prejudicial judgments of taste, though even here Hutchings tends to gravitate to Dykes’s less opulent, ‘old style’ creations rather than the opulent romantic ones.

Hutchings’ reappraisal nevertheless highlights that fact that the intense reaction to Victorian hymnody was itself nothing more than one of ‘taste’, and of one era rejecting its immediate forbear with characteristic repugance. To object, however, to the chromaticism of Dykes’s or Stainer’s musical language, and to their emotionalism, ultimately shaped by romanticism, was ultimately irrational, and the glib rejection of the poetry exposed a laziness in critique clearly articulated in Watson’s The English Hymn.

While this thesis is not intended to initiate a crusade in favour of the rehabilitation of the Tractarian hymn which so vigorously spearheaded the spirit of reform in the Anglican Church in the mid nineteenth century, its intention is, nevertheless, to draw attention to the highly individual nature of the style of hymnody which quickened the creative minds of so many poets and composers of the era. In one sense the thesis maps out the nature of the evolution of the Tractarian hymn and how it roughly defined three stages of development in (a) the ‘preliminary’ work of Redhead, Gauntlett, Ouseley,

Elvey, Hopkins, Monk, Goss, Brown and Smart, (b) John Bacchus Dykes (the

cclxxiii apogee of the Tractarian hymn) and (c) the more professional, thought- provoking and secular-inspired work of Barnby, Stainer and Sullivan. But, in another sense, it illustrates in some detail how intrinsically sophisticated the art of this hymnody became, how its growth depended to a considerable extent on the contemporary influence of Romanticism and secularism (both in poetical and musical terms), how, in a typically Romantic fashion, its development was driven by hybridisation, and how, in its final stages, it became a focal aspiration for artistic professionalism, involution and enlightenment. The outcome of this study, therefore, has been to challenge headlong the rejection of this repertoire by its twentieth-century critics in all aspects. The Tractarian revival, I would also argue, initiated a rich period of creativity. It gave birth to a much neglected style of poetry in an age when being a ‘religious poet’ was an accepted position and a musical art which transformed the hymn into a genre worthy of the same craftsmanship as an anthem, symphony or song, and where the highly developed chromatic language was a quintessential component in the expressive matrix of the art form. Moreover, in an age where we are more open to the pathos of Victorian music, it is now high time that the Tractarian hymn was accorded the merit it deserves as a vital and inspiring artistic and cultural constituent of its period.

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cclxxxii

Webb, C. C. J. Religious Thought in the Oxford Movement (S.P.C.K.: London, 1928).

Wellesz, E., ‘The Earliest Latin Hymnody’ in Frost, M. (ed.), in The Historical Companion to Hymns Ancient and Modern (Clowes & Sons: London, 1962).

Welsh,C., Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century, 1799-1870 (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1972).

White, S. W., ‘Liturgy’ in Hastings, A. S.& Pyper, H. (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2000). Whittle,T., Solid Joys and Lasting Treasure (Rose Anderson Publications:Bolton,1985).

Wilton, P., ‘Refrain’ in The New Oxford Companion to Music (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2000).

Wilkinson, R. W., Hymns Ancient and Modern, diss. PhD (University of Hull, 1985).

Wither, G., Hymns and Songs of the Church, (Reeves and Turner: London, 1895).

Wordsworth,W., The Poetical Works: Hutchinson, T., (ed.) iv. (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1956).

Other Journals consulted:

Ecclesiologist Volumes 1-29 The British Critic, Quarterly Theological Review Ecclesiastical Record 4th series., i-xxxiv Proceedings of the Church Congress Bulletins of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland

2. HYMN BOOKS CONSULTED

Alexander, C. F. Hymns for Little Children (1848)

cclxxxiii Anti-Slave Prayer Meetings Hymn Book (1838).

Believer’s Hymn Book ,Collective Scriptural Hymns for use at all assemblings of the Lord’s People 3000th Thousand, (Staff Notation) (Pickering & Inglis, London).

Barnby, J. Complete Hymn Tunes (1869)

Barnby, J. (ed.) The Hymnary (1872)

Blair, H., & The Church Hymnal of The Christian Year, (Novello & Peace, L.R.(eds) Co., Marshall Brothers, Ltd.: London & Edinburgh, 1917).

Bonar, H. N. Hymns by Horatius Bonar (Henry Frowde: London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, New York and Toronto, 1904).

Bonar, H. N. The English Hymnal with Tunes, (Oxford University Press: and Mowbray and Company Ltd.: London, 1933).

Bridges, R. The Yattendon Hymnal,( B.H.Blackwell, Oxford, 1905). Woolridge, H. E. (eds.)

Chope, R. R. Chope’s Hymnals (1862)

Chope, R. R. Chopes Carols (1865)

Condor, J. Congregational Hymn Book (1836).

Cooke,W., The Hymnary: A Book of Church Song, (Novello: Webb, B., (eds.). London,1872).

[ anon.] Democratic Hymns & Songs (Chartists, 1848).

Drummond & The Church of England Hymn Book (1838; revised 1848; Grenville, (eds). revised 1882).

Dykes, J. B. Hymn Tunes (1902)

Ellerton, J. Children’s Hymn Book rev. Walsham How & Ashton Oxenden (S.P.C.K.: London, 1877).

Elliott, C., Invalid’s Hymn Book 1835).

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Dearmer, P. & The English Hymnal (Oxford University Press & Vaughan Williams Mowbray& Co. Ltd.: London, 1906). R. (eds.)

Farmer, J. (ed.) Schools and Colleges Hymns and Chorales (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1892).

Gatty, C. T. (ed.) Arundel Hymns, 1898-1901 (Boosey & Company: London, 1905).

Goodacre, R. The Psalms and Hymns of the late Dr. Isaac Watts, Vols.1 and 2 (Printed for Francis Westley, 1821).

Harrow School Hymns (4th Edition), (J.C.Wilbee: Harrow, 1855).

Helmore, T., Plainsong (Novello ,Ewer & Co.: London, 1833).

The Home Hymn Book with accompanying tunes for the family circle, (2nd edition), (Edwin Moss).

Hopkins, E. J. (ed.) Congregational Church Hymnal, (1887).

Hopkins, E. J. Complete Hymns (1901)

Keble, J. & Nelson, Salisbury Hymn Book, (1857). Barton & Crombie,A. (eds.).,

The Methodist Hymn Book with Tunes (The London Methodist Conference Office, Novello & Co. Ltd.: London, 1933).

Methodist Free Church School Hymns with Tunes, (London, 1889).

Martineau, J. Hymns for Christ’s Church and Home (1840).

Moffat,J., Handbook to The Church Hymnary with Supplement, (Oxford Patrick, M. (eds.) University Press: London, 1935).

cclxxxv Monk, W. H. (ed.) Hymns Ancient and Modern for use in the Services of the Church with accompanying tunes, (William Clowes & Sons: London, 1861). Also Appendix 1868; Revised Edition 1875; Supplement added 1889; New Edition 1904; Second Supplement 1916; Standard Edition 1922. (Printed for the proprietors by William Clowes & Sons, Ltd., London and Eccles).

Neale, J. M. Hymnal Noted Part 1 (1851) and Part 2 (1856).

Neale, J. M. Hymns for the Sick (1843).

Newman, J. H. Hymni Ecclesiae, Pars 1., E Breviaro Parisensi Pars 2., E Breviaris, Pomano, Sarisburiensi, Eborancensi et aliunde, (Alexandium Macmillan, 1865).

Nicholson, S. H. A Plainsong Hymn Book Musical Edition, (William Clowes (ed.) & Sons, Ltd.: London, 1932).

Office Hymn Book, Pt1 with Music, (Pickering & Chatton: London, 1890).

Olney Hymns in Three Books, (Produced and Published by Arthur Gordon & Hugh Osborn for and on behalf of the Cowper and Newton Museum, Market Place, Olney.

Hymns of Progress (The Progressive Associates, 1883).

Psalms and Tunes with Supplement, Public, Social and Private Worship for use of The Baptist Denomination (Psalm and Hymn Trust, Holborn, E.C.4., 1886).

Strong, T. B. Oxford Hymn Book (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1908).

Selbourne, (Lord) The Book of Praise from the Best English Hymn-writers, (McMillan and their Golden Treasury Series, 1862).

Social Hymns for the use of Friends of the Rational System of Society (1840).

Stainer, J. (ed.). The Church Hymnary (1898).

Stainer, J. Hymn Tunes (1900)

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Stewart, R. P. (ed.) The Church Hymnal.

Sullivan, A.S., Church Hymns (1874).

Troutbeck, J. Westminster Abbey Hymn Book (Novello: London, 1897).

Winkworth, C. The Chorale Book of England, (1863). & Goldschmidt, O. & Bennett, W. S.

Winkworth, C. Lyra Germanica (Routledge & Sons: New York & London: (trans.) 1862)

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